


We Drown Together

by GalaxyThreads



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers Family, Canon-Typical Violence, Dysfunctional Family, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant, Odin does not have such a great sense of timing and Loki and Thor suffer, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Avengers, Protectiveness, Team as Family, Thanos's A+ parenting, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-06-16 13:14:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15437835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyThreads/pseuds/GalaxyThreads
Summary: ""...Sir?" Peter repeats, cautiously. The man licks his dry, split lips and then parts them, ragged breath escaping followed by a pleading whisper: "Help him.""Odin arrives too late to save Thor and Loki from the plummet into the Void at the end of Thor 1, and both are captured and claimed by the hand of Thanos. Four years later, Peter Parker comes across two half-dead men wandering the streets of New York. FINSIHED! (No slash, no smut)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to this story! I'm taking a break from Stygian at the moment (another Avengers Fanfic, for those of you unaware) because it has literally driven me to tears and this idea occurred to me a few months ago and I finally sat down and started it. Thank you so much for giving it a try! :)
> 
> So, in Thor 1 Odin arrives at the precise time to keep both Thor and Loki from falling into the Void and I looked at that, tilted my head and the cynical part of my brain went: well, what if that didn't happen? What if Odin just missed them and both Loki and Thor fell into the Void and were captured by Thanos? Whalla! The story was born! :)
> 
> IMPORTANT THINGS TO BE AWARE OF:
> 
> This is an Alternate Universe, pals, and since Loki and Thor have been stuck with Thanos since they fell, the Battle of New York never happened, just want to make that clear. The Avengers have still assembled, but it was to fight off Malekith when he roared in with the Aether instead. Age of Ultron didn't happen because New York didn't, so no Wanda or Pietro, sorry. :( Peter references stuff that happened in Spider-Man: Homecoming, but without the Chitauri warships, it occurred slightly differently, also, CIVIL WAR has also not occurred. And, though I'm a hard core Clint/Laura shipper, I sort of want to try my hand at Clint/Natasha so Laura/Barton children wont be in this story, either, and (this note is turning out much longer than I intended) after Captain America: the Winter Solider, Bucky went back with Steve after the Helicarrier exploded-I think this is everything you need to know for right now. ;)
> 
> Things will be explained deeper as the story progresses, but I'm just trying to prevent as much confusion as possible. :) Again, thank you for your interest.
> 
> Pairings: Tony/Pepper, Jane/Thor, and Clint/Natasha
> 
> Rated for minor violence, implied/referenced torture, paranoia on my part and an over all darker feeling. No slash, no smut, nor anything inappropriate. Language is all K.
> 
> Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing!
> 
> For your information, this story is cross-posted on Fanfiction.Net under the pen name of "LodestarJumper".
> 
> Just a personal note, if you could refrain from using cussing/strong language if you comment (no offense to how you speak! Promise! =) It just makes me uncomfortable) I would greatly appreciate that. ;)

* * *

 

_Oh, this is all we know; oh, tragic and miserable,_

_We're not cynics, we just don't believe a word you say; we're not critics, we just hate it all anyway._

_-Icon For Hire "Cynics and Critics"._

* * *

 

Peter ought to accept the fact that he (despite his strong resentment towards the idea) is a bit of an idiot. "A bit" is actually a pretty flattering statement, because he is a vast one, actually; how he managed to make it into High School with his head firmly attached to his shoulders is starting to become a bit of a mystery. One that even the great detective Sherlock Holmes would be puzzled at. Honestly, it's just buckets upon buckets filled with stupid, stupid,  _stupid._

He really shouldn't be surprised anymore, but he does have his moments where he has to pause and wonder with great amazement  _how_ it is exactly that he's not dead by now. Because, despite how his actions speak otherwise to this point, it is, in fact,  _not_ a goal of his to be stabbed, impaled or even nicked by the sharp object in the abdomen that's currently looking to be headed in that direction.

 _Idiot._ His mind insists, in a voice that sounds drastically like Aunt May's.  _Idiot, idiot, idiot._

Indeed.

Honestly, his only goal after leaving school was to do a quick patrol around the city, make sure there was no one who he needed to help across the street then head home because he has a Spanish exam on Friday that he needs to study for and if he doesn't pass it then May's going to ground him from the suit for a week.

Again.

He's been slipping with homework recently as he's been attempting to work off the stress that the Vulture-incident shoved onto him through Spider-Man and Aunt May is not happy. Granted, she hasn't exactly been  _pleased_ to an amount of boundless joy since learning about his alter-ego three months ago. She yelled, then she cried, and then called Mr. Stark and repeated the process.

Peter felt horrible, he didn't mean to keep it from her, it just sort of happened; he'd just wanted to track down Uncle Ben's killer and be done with it, but the outcome didn't turn out like that. Instead, he'd kept  _going_ and enjoyed it.

After she'd gotten through with crying and a fair bit of yelling (honestly Peter had half expected her to toss him into the streets and burn the suit in anger), she'd set out a few guidelines that he was to follow and one of those was: "School has to come first, your education isn't going to suffer". Peter has been trying, he  _really_ has, but sometimes the sleepless nights really eat at him and he escapes into his suit to burn off steam. Without the proper amount of rest he needed, he fell asleep during multiple classes, Ned's prodding with pens the only thing keeping him from utterly failing, but the few C's that he achieved he can't say he's utterly proud of.

Aunt May caught word of this and was quite furious and didn't let him go out for a week.

So yes, he has to pass the quiz with a B+ or better because he doesn't want a repeat of May's wrath. He was only going to do a quick hour long run around the city and then be done with it. An hour. That was it.

Reality, as it turns out, does not bend quite so easily to time schedules.

Out of place.

It's the first phrase that pops into his head that really fits the two men. It's really the first wording that flits across his brain in the first place, but it fits more than the following: "strange and possibly dangerous" does, although it's not  _wrong._ Not exactly. Peter wouldn't exactly label the two of them as bank-robbers, or really criminal looking, but they do seem to give of this sort of " _vibe"._ New York is not exactly home to innocent angels on a good day and most people have come to accept that if you wander the streets, you're going to come across some shady fellows. It's just common  _knowledge_ that everyone who grows up there is taught in childhood.

No crowd normally parts like this for any random guy like they are for these two blokes.

Honestly, after he got over the "strange"-thing he thought it was almost amusing. There is nothing really threatening about them for the people to be actively avoiding/walking around them for at a first look. Both are tall, but that's about all they have in common. Dark hair spills over the shoulders of the man on the left and golden hair is tied into a firm ponytail on the man on the right. The dark-haired man is thin and the other is broad making it an odd contrast. The blond man's arm is swung over the thinner's shoulder and he appears by all intents to simply be dragging the former along in a tired stagger that looks  _exhausting._

It was once he realized this, that it had gone from amusing to concerning.

Neither was heading in the direction of a hospital that they both appeared to greatly need, just aimlessly moving forward. The black-haired man appears to be trying to talk to the general population who avoid them because his head turns in their direction and people give him panicked looks. It was in this moment that Peter had finally realized  _why_ they were avoiding the two like a wrinkly, old, walking band aid that smells fetid.

Clutched in the right hand of the dark-haired man is a staff-spear thing about two and a half feet long with a glowing blue object at the end. They're wandering around with the weapon might as well have been the Black Plague for all that New York appears to care and if someone doesn't do something soon, they'll more than likely be arrested.

Which for some reason, doesn't quite sit well with him.

Peter tilts his head curiously and gives the two another hard stare as when the dark-haired man attempts to speak to someone else, a young adult makes a rather rude gesture in his direction. Peter frowns.

They need assistance—or at least directions to a hospital and, Peter isn't certain, but he's pretty sure neither is native to New York. They likely won't be able to find one easily the way they're going.

"Mr. Parker," Karen's voice sounds inside his ear, causing him to jump slightly. Sometimes he forgets that she's  _there_ because she can be so quiet. It's nice to have a companion as he patrols and someone who can direct him to those in need, but sometimes she can be like an unhappy nanny with everything that he does. He is aware that Mr. Stark designed her to assist and look out for him, which he finds oddly warming, but sometimes he misses the days where he was solo. Why? She's a fully functioning AI who has, alas, had the pleasure of working with him for several months now and she can pretty well guess his actions. Then voices her disagreement. Loudly. This is reassured to him a moment later as (with a disapproving tone) she states: "I find this unadvisable."

Unfortunately for her, this doesn't really deter him.

Peter moves from his perch on the side of a building, beginning to shift towards the two men as he crawls along the glass and states, snarkily: ""This"?"

"Your current choice of action: moving to assist those two men." Karen says without missing a beat.

Peter lifts his wrist aiming a web; yeah, well, pretty much everything he does as Spider-Man is inadvisable to her. Jumping into a gun fight: inadvisable, staying fifteen minutes past the eleven PM curfew: inadvisable, helping an elderly across the street: inadvisable because they might have a gun and shoot him. She is unbelievably smart, but sometimes a paranoia monster.

Peter shoots the web and gives it a tug to make sure it stuck and steady enough to hold his weight (he has had the pleasure of slamming his face into the ground when he hasn't done this before hand and a person should only test gravity as little as possible in their lives) before swinging across a distance and landing in a crouch on the wall.

He's getting closer, he just needs to crawl along this and then he can jump in front of them. "They need help." Peter argues, only half heartedly into this dispute. His focus is elsewhere and he isn't really going to listen to Karen's protests anyway.

"Yes," Karen agrees, "shall I call the police?"

The police? They would probably arrest them for wandering around with weapons and they don't look like they can deal with that right now. Peter's frown deepens then he shakes his head, "No, I'm going to talk to them."

If Karen could sigh, Peter is quite positive that she would have at this moment, a slight noise of annoyance does pop up, however. "Of course you are." Yep, that's him, the idiot who wants to help people and will probably not make it to his twenty-first birthday because of it.

Peter resists a roll of his eyes (barely) and flips from off the building he was perched on landing with slight grunt in a crouch about fifteen feet ahead of the two stumbling men. A few people give slight yelps of surprise at his sudden drop in from seemingly nowhere hands going to their chests in a defensive position, but Peter ignores them, shifting through the New Yorker's towards the wide-berthed men. He's attempting to have more confidence than he really feels as he moves forward, because the weapon clutched in the hand of the dark-haired one looks a bit more frightening up close and his spider-sense firmly says  _no_ in the direction of it.

Where did that spear even come from? Peter hasn't seen anything like it before and it doesn't appear to be from a dedicated comic-conner attempting to reenact something. And these two don't even strike him as that type of person. The weapon isn't from any TV series that he knows of and he doesn't recognize it period.

And it's glowing. It is, in all actuality  _glowing._ Not like flashlight does with the single light sparkling through a bulb, but the  _entire thing_  is giving off a blue light. The end is also sharp and pointed more than likely painful to get stabbed with.

He has no desire for that outcome.

Peter takes several steps forward and halfway jumps in front of the men to get their attention. His eyes widen at the sight of them up close. The blond man really  _isn't_ walking on his bare feet, just being pulled along by his raven-haired companion. His clothing is tattered, torn and worn through heavily and there is a thick homemade bandage wrapped around his right eye that contrasts to his deathly pale face. The other man, clutching the spear, appears washed out and exhausted. He too, is wearing similarly diaphanous clothing, barefoot and is equally pale. His eyes hold deep shadows, but his grip on the other's arm is so tight it looks painful. His eyes hold a glassy, haunted note to them.

Peter nearly reers back from this information as it processes quickly, but forces himself to remain standing where he is. "Sir?" Peter asks, tentivily towards the dark haired one, because the blond doesn't look near answering anything, pale and obviously near unconsciousness or actually unconscious. Cats, they look  _terrible._ They need a doctor and  _badly._

The man doesn't look at Peter, eyes stubborn and unyieldingly locked to the ground.

Peter's lips thin.

"Mr. Sir, can—do you need assistance?" He asks, half considering snapping his fingers in front of the raven-haired's face to gain a reaction, but the added length of the sentence appears to be enough for him. His glassy-eyed stare drags from the concrete to Peter's face, coming to a halt and piercing green eyes stare at him sharply.

They look at his face for a long moment, squinting in confusion.

"...Sir?" Peter repeats, cautiously.

The man licks his dry, split lips and then parts them, ragged breath escaping followed by a pleading whisper: "Help him."

His voice is a mixture of an off-center-not-quite-British that Peter can't place. It's croaky and breathless. The raven-haired man tilts his companion towards Peter slightly, the blond letting out a slight groan at the movement. His spider sense pulses and Peter's eyes widen considerably at it and he takes a slight step forward to catch the blond man as he wavers in the other's grip.

"Mister, I don't—" Peter starts to say, his voice rising a pitch because he honestly has  _no idea_ what to do. He just wanted to point them in the direction of a hospital, not much else. He can't help the blond because he isn't a doctor or really certified for anything beyond putting a bandaid over bruises (and you don't put bandaids on bruises). Granted, yes, he  _has_ removed bullets from himself and wrapped the injury, but the only reason he's survived is because he has a healing factor.

He doesn't know how to provide assistance.

Raven-hair clutches at the spear tighter, his fingers flexing around the weapon before a half strangled sort of sob-noise escapes him and he stares at Peter, a look of wild desperation in his eye, " _Help him."_

Peter stares, but his spider sense is thrumming in the back of his mind.

"Please," Raven-hair pleads, his voice softer, he's starting to sway slightly, the grip on the other wavering and Peter reacts more on instinct than thought as he reaches forward to catch the blond as he slips from Raven-hair. Peter's doesn't strain with the surprisingly light weight, but lifts his gaze as the man murmurs (that without his enhanced hearing he honestly doubts he would have caught): "please help my brother", before his eyes slip shut and he promptly collapses.

Peter lets out a rather unmanly yelp of surprise and reaches his other arm out to grab the man as he falls face forward and Peter lands on his knees, both of them lowered to the ground, but no head injuries. That's great, the rather not hysteric part of his brain supplies, no concussions are a good thing. Aunt May would be glad, she, as a nurse, doesn't like dealing with concussions and is  _always_ drilling into him to prevent head injuries as much as he's able.

The other part of his brain, not cheering for preventing two concussions screams in building hysteria:  _WHAT THE HECK DO I DO NOW!?_

911\. He's supposed to call that number for emergencies.

This counts as that, right?

And what? He's Spider-Man at the moment and he can't exactly leave his number for them to call when they need him to come in for a statement. And what about the glowy-staff-thing? Wasn't he against calling the police for  _that_ in the first place?

Peter lets out a slight groan between his teeth and wants to give his hair a tight pull, but can't because of the mask. He can't just remove the suit anyway, his backpack is in an ally  _blocks_ from here and these two need assistance now.

Peter's fingers scramble for his phone in a pocket somewhere on this blasted suit as the people around him continue to give a wide berth. Good, he doesn't really want them to overhear this. His fingers grasp his phone and he tugs at it and presses the passcode in before unending to "call" and flips through his contacts rapidly before pushing "Happy".

He presses it to his ear as he leans forward to tilt the head of Raven-haired so he can breathe easier and listens to the line ring.

And ring.

And ring.

Seriously? Now!? Peter hasn't called or texted Happy as aggressively as he did before the Vulture-incident a few months ago, (frankly he's quite embarrassed at how much he was pushing for the man's attention), but Happy has made a point to pick up his calls after the Vulture thing.

Until now.

He must be busy.

" _This is Happy Hugon, leave a message."_

Peter bites his tongue to withhold the curse of frustration that wants to escape, "Um, yeah, this is Peter, I...found some almost-dead guys that have a weird glowy thing and I don't know what to do. Call me when you get this, please!" Peter says and hangs up. This is just bloody great. He holds the phone to his ear for a moment, hopeful Happy will return the call, but it doesn't happen.

"I have attempted to get ahold of Jarvis, Mr. Parker," Karen says into his ear, producing another jump from him, "but Mr. Stark appears to be busy at the moment with an undercover mission with Black Widow and won't return for several days."

_Perfect._

Peter flips through the contacts again and presses his hands against his eyes for a long moment in frustration, oh, he has no idea what to do. He has the other Avenger's private numbers, Mr. Stark gave them to him about two months ago in case he was "ever busy and you get shot again", but he doesn't exactly feel comfortable calling them. He's only met them in person a few times and he's barely exchanged a few words with some of them. Honestly, he's a little frightened of the team.

" _Help my brother please."_

Siblings, the realization suddenly hits him. The two are  _siblings._ What the heck were they  _doing_ to get this dead-like and grab the weird staff thing? They could be from Asgard, but there's been a lack of communication between them and the other planet over the last five (maybe, honestly, Peter doesn't know, he only remembers Mr. Stark and Captain America mentioning it when he was in the room) months.

Oh, this is wonderful, he can't figure out how to help two people and now he's determined they are aliens. Only reasonable explanation, of course.

He frowns, deeply, before flipping through his contact list again. His aunt is a nurse, she can help him figure out what's wrong and if they really need to see a hospital, she can help him get them there. The glowy-thing keeps halting his attempts to call 911. He just has to get them to his apartment several blocks from here. He can't take both of them at the same time without causing some sort of bodily damage (and he doesn't know if they have broken bones) so he needs a partner in crime. Or a guy in the chair.

Peter types in "N-e" to his phone and presses Ned's contact number before holding the phone to his ear.

 _Please pick up, please pick up, please pick- "_ Hey Peter, this better be about a time for that English assignment that we have, because my mom isn't leaving me alone about that at all. I'm starting to agree with her. Dude, if we don't get started, we are  _literally_ going to have to stay up all night working on an assignment again and as fun as that was, I don't want to do it ever again. Period. So—"

"Um, actually, this isn't about school, Ned." Peter corrects, before Ned can get to much into his rant about the assignment he forgot about. Whoops. It's due on Friday, they  _should_ get started on that. "I need your help."

"Is this for Spider-Man?" Ned demands, his voice  _way_ to cheerful for the situation, "Please tell me it's for Spider-Man."

Peter pauses, glances at the two men then says: "Um, sort of."

000o000

"I feel like a kidnapper." Ned moans in distress as they step into Peter's apartments' elevator after having carried the two men through New York for the last hour or so. It is, unfortunately,  _not_ Ned's first declaration of this statement. More like his twenty-sixth or hundreth. Honestly, Peter lost count some time ago and started tuning them out at about the same time. They've received plenty of stares from many,  _many_ New Yorkers from their current position.

They aren't kidnapping, they're just...moving the two adults so that way they can receive medical assistance when May returns. Without their consent. Yep, it's pretty much kidnapping—with a good intentions, not that that exactly makes it better. Peter resists the urge to lean towards the elevator wall and give it a good whack with his forehead. The most it will do is hurt and then bring a headache, furthering his current one, but it might help his ever rising levels of anxiety.

Peter readjusts his grip on the blond, grabbing a little firmer to his arm and waits for the elevator to reach the floor his and May's apartment is located on. Both Ned and Peter started with Blond-guy and Raven-haired in fireman's carry, but the stares they'd received for the action had made them both change to an arm over the shoulder and a slight drag.

It doesn't help their (the adults) bare feet any, but it has helped with the whole "we aren't kidnappers" look they were going for. Neither Ned nor Peter has any strong desire to go to prison. Or any desire at all, actually. He is honestly surprised that they made it back to Peter's apartment without being pulled to the side by a concerned police officer.

The elevator, finally, blessedly  _dings_ and Peter shuffles forward, his shoulders giving a slight whine in protest as he moves and he presses his lips together. They are tired of dragging a person around and would like to stop. Almost there, Peter reminds himself.

Ned had grabbed Peter's backpack on the way to assist Peter with moving the two men and Peter had changed back into normal clothing before they began their trek back to the apartment. They reach the door and Ned releases a breath of relief as Peter stuffs his left hand into the depth of his pocket, searching for his key.

His fingers wrap around the cool metal and Peter sighs with solace that he didn't lose it again. It's happened more times than he can admit aloud without damaging his pride. He's always losing things, it's kind of a curse. He puts something down and it's pretty much never where he left it after that. It's ridiculous, because he can name the first twenty monarchs of Norway after looking at it once, but lose a bowl of cereal he just poured. Peter stuffs the key into the lock and shoves the door open, dragging Blond-guy into the small apartment.

It's smaller than the one that he and May used to have towards the beginning of this year (about two months ago) but they moved when the money issue started getting worse. Ben paid for a lot of the expenses with his job that May couldn't and with her suddenly forced to pay for everything, money has gotten tight. It's not uncomfortable (the apartment) and May does what she can to keep costs down low, so he doesn't complain about how much he misses their old apartment. Yes, it's not the same one that they had when Uncle Ben was alive, but that's a good thing. Sort of.

There's less memories here than there was at the other apartment, but it kind feels like they've betrayed Ben slightly by moving. May needed it though, and that pretty much settled and complaints Peter had on the issue to a quiet murmur in the back of his mind. It's not like they switched complexes, they just moved down the hall and Peter is grateful for that.

Peter pulls Blond-guy into the living room and distributes him on one end of the sofa that he slumps against, his body lax and unresponsive. His breath escapes him in a hissed groan. It's concerning. The man's eye-patch band aid thing is dirty and looks like it needs to be replaced soon. Peter doesn't want to attempt removal. He's half afraid he'd make it worse than it already is. (Honestly, Peter doesn't  _know)_ for all he's aware, the entire eyeball could be missing. Which would be disgusting.

The door to the apartment closes before Ned walks into the room several moments later, releasing Raven-hair onto the other side of the sofa and his head rolls back, eyes squeezing shut for a moment a slight grimace appearing on his face. Peter's breath catches in his throat, but Raven-haired doesn't awaken.

Peter runs a hand through his hair and releases a slight hysterical laugh. "Okay, great, they're in here." He says.

_What now?_

He can have a really bad, stupid impulsive streak sometimes, and this is definitely on the list of one of the more ludicrous things he's done. Why the heck did he think this was a good idea? It is a little late to return them though, or just distribute them in a hospital. He should have thought just a little harder about this.

_Idiot. Idiot. Idiot._

"Yeah." Ned says, his expression perfectly stating Peter's uncertainty to this situation.

A sudden surge of gratitude sinks into Peter's stomach for Ned agreeing to help him with this rather than just proclaiming him crazy and never speaking to him again. Peter wouldn't have blamed him if that  _had_ happened.

Peter swings his backpack over his shoulder forcing his eyes away from the two unconscious men and he stares at the staff-thing that he stuffed into his backpack earlier. He hadn't known what to do with it when Ned arrived, but it seemed fairly important to the two brothers so he took it. He shoved it into his backpack, the sharp part first so the stick was pointing up because it didn't look so threatening.

He grabs the golden handle and his spider sense tingles unhappily in the back of his mind. What is  _up_ with this thing? His spider sense has been blaring in the back of his skull ever since he came three feet of it.

Peter unzips the top of his backpack and pulls the rest of staff-spear-thing from within the confines of it. The blue part isn't glowing as heavily as it was when Raven-haired was holding it earlier, but it's still glowing softly.

His spider sense hisses in the blue-glowy-stone-thing's direction.

There is nothing dangerous about it! Nothing that Peter can see, anyway. He rests it on the coffee table in front of the sofa (giving a mental sigh of relief as his spider sense calms almost instantly to a low thrum rather than a high pitched scream) and tosses his backpack towards the foot of the couch and shares a look with Ned.

What has he gotten himself into?

May is going to kill him.

With a blunt spoon.

Peter groans and presses his hands against his eyes, "I am an idiot." He moans aloud.

He doesn't see it, but can almost hear Ned's shrug, "Pretty much."

Peter lifts his head from the confines of his palms and glares, "Thanks."

Ned lifts his hands in defense, "Peter, we  _literally_  just kidnapped two homeless guys with a glowy-staff thing that should probably be at a hospital."

"We didn't kidnap them." Peter protests weakly, though common sense in the back of his mind argues otherwise. Raven-hair asked Peter to help though, the desperation in his green eyes isn't something Peter thinks he can forget anytime soon. It's probably why he wanted a first hand in this in the first place. Alright, note to self: Never make eye contact with the people he helps again.

He releases another distressed moan and Ned smacks his upper arm in a friendly way to quiet him, "You did the right thing." Ned assures and Peter looks up at him, doubtful.  _Right._ Ned's lips thin and he sighs, "Alright,  _probably."_

More accurate.

Hopefully this doesn't blow up in their faces.

May will be home soon, she can fix this. Why couldn't Happy have picked up the phone and talked him out of doing this? Or Karen? She seemed to just accept that this was going to happen and remained quiet. Granted, she wasn't really  _there_ for when they pulled the two guys around New York, stuffed in the back of Peter's backpack and all. Peter pulls his hands down his face in his anxiety before sighing heavily, "Okay."

 _Okay._ This is fine.

Ned and Peter stare at their kidnappee's for a second before Ned turns to him, "What do we do now?"

 _How should he know?_ He's been asking himself the same bloody question for the last three minutes since they got here!

"I don't know," Peter admits, "we can't really do anything until May gets home." Ned frowns before releasing a sigh and shifts across the room, exiting the living room and plopping down onto one of the chairs pushed against the table in the kitchen. Peter's lips curve down, but he follows the suit and sits stiffly in the chair, the further he gets from the staff-thing the lower his spider sense thrums. Weird. He leans against his elbow, resting his other hand on the wood. He still has a view of the couch from here and can see the heads of blond and black hair popping over the edge. In the sudden silence, he can hear the ragged breath of one of them. He can't tell which.

He releases a breath into the air and glances at the clock. May won't be off her shift for about thirty minutes and there's still the twenty minute wait as she gets transportation back to the apartment. They have plenty of time to fill during this likely hour long wait ahead of them.

Peter's lips thin and he releases a sigh before lifting his gaze to Ned, "You said we had a group English assignment?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! :) I'm going to attempt to update this as quickly as I can, but I do sort of need to plan it completely first, it could be a little bit of a waiting period. Thank you so much for your interest! :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Just wow. Thank you guys so much for your support! I am beyond words! (and am now admittedly a little nervous). Thank you!
> 
> Happy August! :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing!
> 
> Warnings for: Some description of injury, nothing major and I don't dive into excessive detail, but warnings are always good. ;)
> 
> Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors!

* * *

 

"Who are they?"

They are well into their English assignment (a presentation for Shakespeare's  _Romeo and Juliet_ ) when the lock for apartment clicks and May steps into the building. He and Ned are, in fact, so deep into their analysis of who-they-should-blame-for-the-ending that they don't realize that she has returned until there's a loud  _clunk_  from the door sliding shut again and May's voice rings out.

Peter and Ned jump slightly from the sound of the question in surprise and Peter whirls, vaulting from his seat a startled " _May!"_ escaping him. He's lost track of time in his growing frustration with Romeo, and how Ned is quite convinced that he is who they should blame for all the deaths, but Peter doesn't think so. He'd stopped looking at the clock so desperately, awaiting his aunt's return. He hadn't realized she'd be home so soon.

In hindsight, maybe he should have called her to know what was going on in the last hour.

Whoops?

Ned shoves to his feet behind Peter (and though Peter can't see it, he can pretty well picture the innocent smile on Ned's lips). "Hi, Mrs. Parker." Ned says, cheerily.

May's lips thin slightly and she shifts her gaze from the two heads poking over the edge of the couch, sliding her hands onto her hips. She's frustrated. She only does the hip-thing when she's vexed and  _wants_ to yell, but has decided above doing it. Peter would honestly prefer being shouted at then receive the  _look_ for the next half an hour.

Yep, he  _definitely_  should have called.

May's hair is slightly messy; the bun was likely bobby-pinned into place this morning, but has fallen apart as the day has worn on. Her clothing is rumpled and she looks tired, she probably has about a negative six on wanting-to-deal-with-this scale. Guilt swims through his stomach; he wasn't really thinking about how this might effect May.

He should have just taken the two siblings to a hospital, suit on or not. It would have been less stressful for his aunt and everyone else.

May's gaze flickers towards the two men again, before she parts her lips with what looks like some effort, "You didn't tell me we were going to have guests."

He didn't  _know_ this morning, either. Can someone  _actually_  plan to assist two random dudes wandering around into their schedule? Peter glances at Ned helplessly, "I—um, they're not…" Peter trails awkwardly, trying to figure out how to explain this to her with actual words rather than just hoping if he stares hard enough, she'll understand. Not here willingly? That won't sound good, Peter is already trying to convince himself that he and Ned  _didn't_ kidnap them, and telling May they did will sort of ruin that. He wishes he'd written down what he planned on saying.

May waits patiently, hands shifting to fold across her chest. He'll be lucky if he's only grounded for a week after this. The rest of his life is a better bet.

"They asked for my help." Peter offers weakly. "They sort of passed out at my feet and I didn't really know what to do, but the dark-haired guy asked me to help them."

May's eyebrow lifts, asking for an elaboration.

Peter turns to Ned pleading with him quietly to assist, but his surrogate brother looks just as helpless as he is. Drat. It would be easier to just explain everything, Peter guesses, but there's honestly not a colossal amount to dive into. Peter's lips thin, "I was doing stuff...you know, in the suit," May's fingers clench reflexively. She doesn't feel comfortable with Peter's activities as a vigilante, so he usually tries to keep the amount he talks about it to a minimum. It's hard with the nightmares of the Vulture because he isn't sure if he can go to her for them, so he usually doesn't. Peter is just relieved that she supports his decision to use his powers for hero-work the best that she can and hasn't wrapped him in bubble wrap then moved them both to Australia in a safe bunker to spend the rest of their days in bomb suits. She's always been a tad bit overprotective, but after Uncle Ben, it's only really gotten worse. Peter tries his best to not mind.

Peter forces his tongue to continue, but it's heavy against the roof of his mouth now, "Anyway," he clears his throat, "I saw them wandering around and went to talk to them, 'cause they didn't exactly look super great, and the dark-haired dude asked me to help and then passed out. They had this weird glowy-thing, so I didn't feel comfortable taking them to a hospital or police, I called Ned and we took them here instead. You're a nurse, so I figured…" He trails.

May gnaws at her lower lip, but she processes Peter's words before asking, ""Glowy-thing"?"

Peter glances at Ned who scrambles towards the living room where they left the humming staff-thing on the coffee table, and the teen reemerges into the kitchen ten seconds later the staff in hand. Peter's spider sense hums lowly in the back of his mind, insisting:  _threat, threat, threat._

Peter presses a hand against his temple as casually as he can to try and rub the sensation away. It doesn't help much.

 _Threat, threat, thre_ —

_Shut. Up._

May shifts forward and squints, shoving her glasses up her face and stares at the staff for a long moment, her expression getting tighter. She shakes her head slightly and lifts a hand out to poke at the gem. The spider-sense all but  _blares_ in warning like an emergency warning on a sinking ship in the back of his skull.

 _THREAT, THREAT, THREAT, THRE_ —

Peter swiftly moves forward and grabs his aunt's wrist preventing her from touching the stone. Neither Peter or Ned have tried to since finding the two siblings; both of them stared at the glowing part and then looked at each other the science parts of their brains going, " _dangerous, don't touch without proper equipment"._ They are both curious, of course, to  _what_ it is, but Peter or Ned want to accidentally set it off it off it's some sort of bomb.

It might as well be for how much his spider sense loathes it.

May stares at him, her expression slightly irritated, "Don't touch it." Peter says, firmly. May nods and Peter releases her hand before she draws it back to her side.

"Do either of you have any idea what it is?" May asks, staring between the two of them. Peter and Ned share a look. Honestly, nope, they've got  _no clue._ Peter just has his fingers crossed that it's not an explosive. If it is, Mr. Stark may  _actually_ murder him in frustration at his stupidity.

"Um, no." Ned answers honestly when Peter's lips part to say " _sort of"_ in an effort to soothe his aunt's nerves. May sighs deeply and glances towards the two men.

"They passed out?" She inquires, "That's why you took them here? You want me to see if we can help them here then send them on their way, or if we actually have to take them to a hospital?" She guesses. Peter nods.

She lifts a finger towards him. "Fine. But if that  _does_ turn out to be some sort of bomb and it denotes, I am grounding you in the afterlife."

She too, apparently does not feel comfortable turning the staff-thing into the possessions section of a hospital filled with ill people, that if it  _does_ explode would be mass chaos. Which wouldn't be good. They  _could_ call the police, but at this point, it's a little strange, " _hey, yeah, we found these guys and they passed out and kidnapped them, will you help?"_

Spider-Man already isn't in the highlight of the news (thanks a million J.J. Jameson) and this probably wouldn't appeal to the public eye much.

"Fair enough," Peter shrugs to her promise.

Ned laughs and as May moves towards the kitchen sink, she jabs a finger out towards him, "I'll ground  _you,_ too, your mother's permission or not."

Ned frowns, "But—" He starts to protest.

"You want my help or not?" May demands, "That's our agreement. Put that thing on the table—no, the  _coffee_ table, I don't want it in here. It feels strange."

So she noticed that too. Ned moves to the living room and sets the staff-thing onto the surface, his spider sense quiets the agonizing thrum to a dull throb. May releases a slight exhale, then frowns before setting her bag on the counter and moving to wash her hands. She applies a generous amount of hand soap into her left palm. She looks over at Peter with a frown, "Why can't you just be like a  _normal_ teenager and bring home a dog?"

Ask that to the spider that bit him, he has no other answer.

Peter lets out a shaky laugh, "I don't think we'd be able to keep it alive." He remarks. Ned snorts loudly from the living room and May shoots him an unhappy look, waving a soapy hand in his direction.

"That is so not true." She argues. Really? Both of them are busy a large majority of the time with May working doubles whenever she can and Peter's alter ego running around. Peter hardly has time for  _anything_ with school and Spider-Man, anyway. Trying to feed, walk, and care for a dog thrown into the mix? No thank you. They'd have have to give the poor animal away before they accidentally murdered it. Uncle Ben always wanted a dog, but Peter had severe allergies to animals before the spider-bite so they couldn't get any pets. They could now, though, Peter doesn't have any problems with the hair.

Ned (having moved beside him again) and Peter raise an eyebrow in an almost perfect synchronization to May's comment as Ned apparently connects the same dots Peter did. Animal living here: bad.

May frowns and shakes her head before turning off the faucet and wiping her hands on a towel to dry them before resting the dish towel on the counter top next to her purse. She pushes her glasses up her nose before sighing heavily, again, and moves towards the living room.

Peter and Ned trail after her like lost puppies. May kneels down in front of the dark-haired man and turns to Peter, "He was awake, right?"

"Yeah," Peter answers, his memory flashing back to a few hours ago. The staggering stumble with the blond man's arm swung over his shoulder like it was the only thing keeping him grounded.

' _Help him, please.'_

Peter shakes the memory from the forefront of his mind, "The blond-guy wasn't."

May hums and leans forward lifting the right eyelid of the dark-haired man and then the left. "His pupils aren't dilated, or uneven; no head injury," she lists aloud. Peter has a brief sense of recurring accomplishment at managing to prevent the raven-haired man's head from smacking against the ground face-first about an hour ago.

May rests a hand against the man's forehead and her eyebrows meet together, "Peter, go get the thermometer." She commands. Peter nods and scrambles to obey her order, quickly skirting around the back of the couch and moving down the hallway. Thermometer, thermometer...where would that  _be?_ The bathroom, maybe?

Peter ducks inside said room, flicking on the light and pulls open the cabinet above the sink where a large majority of May's medical supplies are. She used to stick them up at the top of a closet in their other apartment, but since the move, space has been tight. Peter is admittedly a little grateful, when he gets injured as Spider-Man (even though they do have an agreement that he's supposed to tell her) he can usually patch the wound up easier than beforehand.

He can't recall seeing a thermometer, though. Peter shuffles through the supplies pulling out a box of band-aids and resting it on the counter, then pulling out a bottle of aloe vera, and shoving other stuff to the side before he locates the box with the thermometer in it. May has an serious aversion towards thermometers that are placed in the mouth (even if they are more accurate) and bought one that just has to lifted to a forehead and scan the temperature that way. Peter shed no tears over May tossing out the tongue-thermometer.

Peter grabs the box it resides in and scrambles to pull the top off then remove the small device into his hand that reminds him strongly of a curved deodorant can. Peter doesn't bother with shoving the band aids and aloe vera back into the cabinet (he'll just have to pull it all out again, anyway) and slides out of the bathroom moving towards the living room.

May's fingers are pressed against Raven-hair's neck, likely feeling the pulse. Her expression doesn't look happy. "Here," Peter says and holds the thermometer to her, May takes it from him and lifts it towards Raven-hair pressing the "read-temperature button" and waits for a moment. She lifts it up towards her eyes and her lips part with slight disbelief.

Peter attempts to glance at what it  _is,_ but his aunt flicks the device up towards his head like it's some sort of gun and Peter freezes as she presses the button then looks down at the device again. "Ninety-seven point four, Fahrenheit," she murmurs, "it's working." She doesn't seem happy with this. Peter has never really retained body heat well, but after the spider-bite this issue has only gotten worse. Peter is actually quite proud, this is one of the warmest temperatures he's managed to hold steady for months.

May flicks the device at Ned and pulls it back a moment later, "Ninety-eight point six, Fahrenheit," she reads aloud and shakes her head again before lifting to towards Raven-hair. She flicks the button and both Ned and himself lean over her shoulder to read it.

Eighty-five point three, Fahrenheit.

What the heck? How is he  _not_ shivering? He is  _literally_ in the midst of hypothermia and nearing the severity of it. This is ridiculous. Not shivering when you're  _this_ cold is bad. Very bad. "Ned," May addresses, her voice taking on the calm tone she attains when she's starting to panic. "You know where the extra blankets are right?"

Ned nods, he sleeps over here often enough that they should just label the blankets as "Ned's", "Go grab me a couple." May commands and Ned nods, shifting towards the hallway. May's frown deepens and she lifts Raven-hair's wrist slightly then pinches at the skin on the back of his hand. It doesn't immediately retain its shape and Peter's lips thin. Dehydration.

"He's heart rate is slower than I'd like, but it isn't terrible, he's dehydrated and suffering severe hypothermia. You're  _positive_ he was the one that was awake?" May demands, looking back at him.

Peter nods.

May presses against his wrist again, then works her way up his hand and frowns before pulling up the other pale hand and playing with his fingers for a moment, "Four of his fingers are broken and dislocated." She notes, then lifts her head.

"Ned!" May yells.

"Yeah?" Ned calls from the hallway, his voice is slightly muffled.

"Grab the medical tape in the bathroom, too!"

"Okay!" Ned calls.

Peter turns to her, "Are you going to set his fingers?" He demands; the thought unsettles him. Peter broke his pinky and fourth finger in third grade after falling off of the monkey bars and he asked to be kept awake so he could see what they did. The sound was disgusting and the feeling even more so. He forever regrets the decision.

May shrugs helplessly, "I haven't decided yet, but probably." She answers, looking up as Ned re-enters the room, blankets in hand and the medical tape's paperboard outer covering in his mouth. May rises to her feet and takes one of the fleece blankets from him with a Darth Vader mask on the back, it's the one that Uncle Ben got for Peter on his thirteenth Birthday, two years ago.

May covers Raven-haired in the blanket then grabs the three others setting them on the ground at the foot of the couch, taking the medical tape from Ned as he offers it out towards her. May frowns and tugs the tape from his hands and pulls off the plastic covering tossing it onto the coffee table beside the staff-thing still thrumming softly.

May pulls up the blanket somewhat to lift up Raven-haired's hands and extracts them from within the cocoon of the blanket. Peter didn't really notice until now, but his fingers  _are_ bruised with slight purple, black and a yellowish-green. In his defense, Peter wasn't exactly  _looking_ for any bruises. Sort of. He didn't want to damage them so he was looking for anything severe. This apparently didn't pop up as life threatening.

May pulls his fingers straight with one hand and pokes at his fourth finger with her other, "I think it's just fractured," she notes, then turns to him.

"Peter, come hold this." She says and Peter moves to kneel next to her, taking Raven-hair's fingers and straining them to be straight as May pulls out a long length of the light brown medical tape then begins to wrap his fourth and middle finger together. She pushes at his fifth finger for a moment before wrapping the proximal phalanx straight and tugs up his right hand, letting the left fall limply to his lap.

After wrapping his forth, middle and pointer finger together to support the pointer and forth, she wraps the metacarpal bone of his thumb, and continues the position the tape around his palm, but halts as she reaches his beginning of his thin, pale wrist.

She cuts the tape for the final time and pushes the edge against Raven-hair's pale skin. Her lips thin and she sits back on her heels. She exhales before sitting up and shifting towards blond-guy. "Ned, put a few more blankets on him."

May moves and takes the wrist of blond-guy, feeling for his pulse. Her lips thin and Peter watches from the corner of his eye as Ned dumps two more of the blankets across Raven-hair. May grabs the thermometer from where she left it on the ground a few minutes ago and lifts it towards Blond-guy, pressing the "read temperature".

May humphs slightly, "One-hundred exact."

Peter lifts an eyebrow in disbelief. So one of them is suffering from severe hypothermia, and the other has a (if minor)  _fever?_ How does  _that_ work? May lifts Blond-guy's left eye lid slightly and squints. "It's not dilated," she notes and then stares at the bandages wrapped around his right one, apprehensively.

"Peter, go get me an ice pack from the freezer," she demands. Peter's lips thin as he realizes what she's doing: attempting to get him away from the scene as she pulls back the wound to stare at it. It's not like the guy's entire  _eye_  is going to be missing or something. It will probably just be a little bruised and possibly black. Nothing more.

Nonetheless, Peter complies.

He slides away from the couch and moves towards the kitchen pulling open the freezer and digging through the frozen foods tugging out the blue pack spinning on his heal as May gasps loudly and releases a lusty swear.

"What?" Peter exclaims and scrambles to grab a towel from a drawer and move towards them as Ned looks over and apparently immediately regrets his decision as he pales, pressing a hand against his mouth.

"Oh,  _yuck."_ Ned groans.

" _What?"_ He repeats. Peter reaches the back of the couch and swings around the side, standing next to May and the ice pack slips from his fingers landing at his feet next to May's knee.

Blond-guy's eye is  _gone._ There's just a messy bloody patch where the eye  _should_ be that is ghastly. The wound is leaking a slight yellow puss and the bandage that was wrapped around it (now resting on the couch cushions between the two siblings) is stained with the same substances. The sight of it is beyond repulsive.

May slowly lowers her hand from her mouth, murmuring something under her breath before squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. "Okay,  _okay,"_ she whispers before opening her eyes again with some effort and leans forward.

"Ned, go get the gauze from the bathroom and a wet rag, Peter, I want you to help me clean this out when he gets back."

Peter resists the urge to vomit, but nods, his lips pressing together firmly.

_He will not throw up, he will not throw up, he will not throw up._

The procedure is nasty and Peter wants to hurl the entire way through and almost does about twice before they complete their mission. With Blond-guy's eye wrapped and clean, May rises to her feet to clean her hands off in the sink as Peter sits down numbly on the coffee table next to the staff-thing.

His spider sense hums in the back of his skull at the displeasure of being close to the staff-thing and Peter wants to smack his head against the nearest wall.

It is fine. It hasn't exploded, yet, so that's a good sign.

So why won't it (his spider sense) just  _shut up?_

Peter steeples his hands under his nose and watches as Ned sits back against one of the arm chairs present in this room, his lips thinned. Peter's going to be sick.

_Sick, sick, sick._

May returns from the kitchen and exhales, "Alright, I want to take them to a hospital to get his eye checked," she points at Blond-guy, "and his hypothermia at  _least,_ but I think it can wait until they wake up. We just need to keep bringing his temperature up and it should be fine. I think. I didn't see anything life threatening, so I think we'll be okay. For now."

Peter nods and Ned echoes his movement shakily.

It's a little past seven PM and they still haven't had dinner, but Peter isn't hungry. He's as  _far_ from hungry as he can be, at the moment, which is strange. Ever since the bite, his metabolism increased ridiculously and he usually feels hungry all the time.

"I think…" Peter pauses, but glances at the men again. May can't skip work to care for them, they've been tight on money since Uncle Ben's death, but Peter  _can_ be sick from school. Someone has to stay and keep them from dying. "I should call in sick at school for the next few days."

May's expression twists, "Peter, I don't—"

"May, think about it," Peter insists, "you can't skip work, I can be "sick" for a few days."

"But you'll have no idea what you're doing!" May argues, " _I'm_ the certified medical expert."

"Then tell me," Peter protests, "I can get it."

May frowns.

Peter bites his tongue, "Please."

"I don't know, Peter, I don't—I don't feel comfortable with this. What if they wake up and attack you?" May demands.

Irritation and minor offense rattle through him momentarily and he forces himself to bite it back. He's  _Spider-Man,_ he fights criminals (sort of) on a daily basis, it's not as though he's  _helpless._

Far from it, in fact.

"May," Ned interjects, "Peter's got a point, he can stay and watch them," he jerks a thumb at the two siblings, "I can take his homework over and stuff."

May frowns, unhappily. She is very against this and Peter groans then buries his head inside his hands. He doesn't just want to sit around and do  _nothing;_ he got them  _into_ this mess, he should at least help as much as he's able.

May lets out a ragged breath, and Peter peaks through his fingers. May is staring at him, her expression furrowed, but laced with frustration. She throws up her hands, " _Fine._ But if  _anything_ and I mean  _anything_ becomes to much for you to handle, you call me, and I mean that,  _call me."_

000o000

Ned goes home a little after eight PM, and he and May have an awkward dinner of cold cereal before going to bed. Peter hardly sleeps, his mind wandering around and round with the endless amount of possibilities that could go wrong or badly and hears May get up to check on their guests over six times. Before they went to bed, May wrote out a list of things Peter needs to check for and explained a large majority of the symptoms he should call her for then handed him the paper.

When it finally hits six AM, Peter all but leaps out of bed and changes clothes before meeting May in the hallway leading towards the kitchen. Her hair is in a loose ponytail and she's wearing her work clothes. She's going in early so she can come back sooner.

Peter trails her into the kitchen, "I called the school; you've got contagious strep throat." She announces as she pulls food stuffs out for breakfast. Peter nods at her statement and turns to glance back at the two men. Neither has shifted much from when he saw them before going to bed last night; Peter doesn't know whether or not this is comforting.

May eats quickly and though Peter attempts to follow the suit, the food swirls around his stomach and doesn't do much else but aid his desire to vomit. Admittedly, he's not looking forward to being on babysitting duty. If it was  _just_ watching them, not a problem, but making sure they don't accidentally kick the bucket (though that probability is low, occurring to May) is a whole different level.

Maybe he should put on the Spider-Man mask so he can have Karen monitor their vitals and tell him if something is going horribly wrong. As soon as the idea pops into his head, it grows in volume and desire.

It will be fine.

He  _won't_  kill them on accident. Probably.

When seven fifteen AM arrives, May presses a kiss on his forehead and ruffles his hair, "I'll be back in a few hours, call, okay?"

"Okay." Peter repeats, giving her a tight smile. She sighs and rests her hands on his shoulders for a moment, something that he can't place settling in her eyes. She releases him and moves to the door.

"I love you!" She calls out.

"You too!" Peter answers, "Good luck!"

The door shuts leaving Peter by himself in the apartment that has never been so quiet in his life. It admittedly aggravates his nerves more than should be necessary. It's not as though there's any monsters running around that will eat him.  _Calm down._

Peter's been alone at the apartment before, it's not as though this is the first time. So why does it feel so different?

Peter gnaws at his inner lip for a few moments, attempting to calm his fraying nerves. His spider sense has been on high alert ever since he found the two siblings and their weird staff-thing. He is going to place the blame of this weary uncomfortableness on  _that._ Yep. Totally his spider-senses fault. Nothing else.

Peter shifts to his room and collapses onto the bed like some sort of pathetic floppy jell-o and buries his head into his pillow. He's exhausted from lack of sleep, but not actually  _tired_ enough to return to dream world.

This is piquing.

Peter digs the palms of his hands into his eyes for a second and releases a loud raspberry. He wishes he could get in contact with Mr. Stark, but he's texted Happy six times since Nine PM last night, and the man still hasn't responded yet. Mr. Stark would probably whack him over the head for stupidity, then solve the problem.

Peter can take the whack, he just has  _no idea_ what to do.

They  _should_ take them to a hospital, for certain, but the stupid staff-glowy thing keeps getting in the way. Yeah, they could just  _not_ give it to the authorities, but what if  _is_ bomb and detonates in their apartment? Then they would be dead, and May  _would_  ground him.

He's starting to regret his decision, intensely.

Peter rolls onto his back and reaches his hand out for his phone his fingers wrapping around the cool metal a few seconds later. He pushes the power button and flicks his pass code in, sliding to his contacts again. Karen said that Mr. Stark was busy, he shouldn't bother him at the moment, but he  _needs_ assistance or at least reassurance or he might just spontaneously combust and it would be messy to clean up.

Peter hesitates for a long moment.

She could get in contact with Mr. Stark, but what if it bothers her?

She said he could call at any time, well, more like  _Mr. Stark_ said that he could call her at any time.

Peter holds his hand over the call button for Mrs. Stark, but stops and presses the power button for his phone. He doesn't want to bother her, she's probably busy. Besides, he's sixteen,  _he doesn't need someone to hold his hand._

Pepper Stark (née Potts) and Peter have only met a few times since Peter ran into Mr. Stark several months ago after Peter stopped the Vulture from taking Mr. Stark's head, Tony and Pepper have been married for three, almost four years now and Peter still finds it strange that he  _actually_ knows Tony Stark's wife and has her number. Most of the time, since she is CEO of Stark Industries, she seems like a figure that someone can admire from afar, but not actually speak with.

All of the Avengers are like that and Peter has their personal numbers. It never ceases to blow his mind when he remembers this. Peter tugs his sleeves over his hands and tosses the phone against the desk where it clatters amongst the school junk.

He flinches at the sound, then buries his head into his chest breathing deeply.

For Christmas, he would like a brain to reside in the empty space between his ears. All there is now, is an vacant chasm that is pathetically large. Peter lets out a loud moan of frustration.

_Idiot, idiot, idiot._

The time passes in an  _aggravating slowness._ Peter checks on the two siblings every half hour, readjusts the blankets on Raven-hair (whose temperature has barely risen by anything) checks the other's temperature and retreats to his room.

He catches up on all the homework he's been falling behind in, starts the third  _Harry Potter_ again, but finds himself too restless to get into it and manages to organize his room before growing bored again. Finally, after three PM, he begins to work on studying for his Spanish quiz by wandering around and listing everything he can in Spanish while making snotty comments to himself about some of the objects. It's not exactly ideal, but it's one of the only ways he can keep his brain from rotting.

A little after three thirty, he re-enters the kitchen/living room area to check on the siblings, but freezes in place with incredulity.

When he'd wandered past, not ten minutes ago, both were still out and didn't look like they'd move for days.

Now?

Raven-hair is sitting up, his fingers on the bandage around Blond-guy's eye as if adjusting it, but he freezes in place as Peter steps into his line of sight. His green eyes are wide, but don't look quite as glassy as they did yesterday when Peter found the two. Dark fine hair is falling around his face and over his shoulders in choppy, thin layers that split down the middle.

All of the blankets have been tossed onto the floor, but Raven-hair  _still_ isn't shivering. It's ridiculous. Peter stands there for another step, awkwardly shifting his weight from foot to foot before moving forward slowly.

"You need those." He points at the blankets and the man's eyes follow his finger, but he doesn't twitch.

"The blankets," Peter explains, "you have major hypothermia."

The man stares at him blankly.

Peter frowns, he understands what Peter's saying, right? He  _was_ speaking English to Peter yesterday when he was asking for help with his sibling, but maybe he only knows a few words in the language, rather than is actually fluent. Peter's eyebrows meet, "You understand what I'm saying, right?"

The green eyed stare flicks from the ceiling to Peter's feet and his lips part, "Who are you?" He whispers. His voice is still croaky and dry.

Water, Peter remembers abruptly, May was  _insistent_ that he give them water if they woke up while she was gone. Wait. He just asked who he is. Peter was in the suit yesterday,  _right._ Well, secret identity is sort of a no-can-do now for these two, "I'm Peter. Peter Parker," Peter says. "I was the guy you ran into yesterday, do you remember me, or...?" He trails.

"I know your voice." The man murmurs, almost immediately; his voice has a slight desperate note. He slowly lowers his broken, fractured fingers from the other's face and rests them on his lap, playing with the frayed edges of his shirt.

His entire posture just screams " _uncomfortable!"._ It makes Peter wary.

"Do you want some water?" Peter inquires.

The man's gaze lifts to his as if surprised. He glances at his sibling for a moment then looks up at him again, "I…" He pauses, clearing his throat, but when he speaks his voice isn't much louder, "what would I have to do in return?"

Peter stares at him.

Um,  _what?_ Peter  _offered,_ he doesn't  _want_ something for giving this dude a basic element of survival. Why on earth  _would_  he?

"Nothing?" Peter states, though when it slips from his tongue, it sounds more like a question. The man's lips twitch, a vague panic lighting in his eyes. Does he seriously need Peter to say that he wants something? This is ridiculous. Fine! "Um, I'll get you the water, for your names, okay?" Peter corrects himself. Names would be helpful. It might assist them in figuring out  _where_ they came from.

The man doesn't exactly  _relax,_ but he does appear to calm somewhat at the compromise.

Peter frowns and moves to the kitchen to get a glass, when he returns to the living room, Raven-hair is taking the pulse of his sibling. Something isn't wrong, right? Peter just checked them, they were pretty okay from what he could tell and what May told him to look for. He didn't slack, right?  _Right?_

Raven-hair looks at him again and Peter lifts the glass towards him, but he doesn't take it. Erm…? Raven-hair's gaze flickers towards the other and he releases his wrist. "I am Luke, and he is my brother, Terence."

Oh.

Peter wasn't sure  _what_ names he was expecting, but he didn't really think either of those to be high on the list. He lifts the glass out towards Luke again and he seems to hesitate for a moment before carefully reaching up to take it from him. Peter notices that Luke's persnickety to keep his fingers as far away as possible from Peter's, a surprisingly impressive feet given his broken and fractured fingers.

Peter wishes he'd thought about that before handing the glass over, Luke doesn't appear to be bothered by his broken hands, however. He drinks a small sip of the liquid before downing the entire glass as if it's the last time he'll see water for weeks. When he's finished, he holds the glass in his hands and stares at the base.

"Do you want more?" Peter asks.

Luke stares up at him, eyes wide. "I…" He glances at Terence then shakes his head. He glances at Peter, "Can...can I ask where we are?"

Why can he  _not?_

Peter shrugs, "Yeah, I don't mind Mr. Luke. You're in Queens, New York."

Luke's eyes enlarge a fraction and he glances down at his broken fingers before looking up at him, "New York as in...New York,  _Midgard?"_ There's something close to a horrified note on his tongue. Midgard? What the  _heck_ is a midgard? Is it some sort of country? Peter can't remember even vaguely hearing of one called that, though.

"Midgard?" Peter prods.

"Earth." Luke states, almost as if correcting a slip up. How you accidentally get "midgard" and Earth mixed up is beyond him. Maybe he's from another country and midgard means Earth in that language?

"I do not understand, we should not…" Luke trails, looking at his hands again. His tone sounds like Peter revealed that someone kicked his puppy.

Peter huffs quietly, "Queens may not be the golden city of Manhattan, but it's not  _that_ bad." He argues. His tone is teasing, but Luke doesn't take it as such.

Luke's fingers twitch and he presses his lips together firmly, flicking his gaze to the gray carpet. "I apologize; I meant no offense."

"None taken," Peter assures, "you look tired, you can go back to sleep; I'll try not to let either one of you die."

Luke lifts his tired eyes towards him, wide. They are shadowed heavily, and though he's been sleeping for over nineteen hours, he seems to still be exhausted, he doesn't look very old with his face lifted to the light like this. Maybe his early twenties at most, over eighteen at least. Peter shoves the thought to the side, he instead focuses on the growing look of chary.

Peter laughs, "I'm just joking Mr. Luke. I know what I'm doing—"  _liar, liar, liar, "—_ you'll both be fine. I'll just take the glass," he leans forward to grab it, but Luke shoves it up towards him as if it will cause him bodily harm not to. Peter raises an eyebrow slightly, but takes the glass. He lifts one of the blankets towards Luke who grimaces faintly at the sight of it.

Peter would be  _begging_ for warmth if he was as cold as Luke is currently, why he's  _unhappy_ at the sight of warmth, he has no idea.

Peter tosses it towards him and Luke flinches as it hits him, but Peter pretends not to notice and starts to move towards the kitchen to put the glass in the sink, "I'm just going to be back here," he announces, "holler if you need anything."

Peter rests the cup in the sink and then sits down at the table, plucking his phone (that he stole off his desk a few hours ago) from his jeans pocket and turns it on. After replying to Ned's " _are you dead?"_ text with a " _not yet"_ he opens his digital copy of  _Jedi Apprentice: A Dangerous Rescue_ by Judy Blundell. He manages to finish three chapters before he hears the rhythm of Luke's breathing even out to indicate uneasy sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has anyone else ever written twenty plus pages with an injured finger in a day? No...? Yep, that's me, the idiot who looked at the medical tape wrapped around my hand and proclaimed "you shall not defeat me, villain!". I regret it, like ow, ow, ow. Anyway, I actually still don't have everything planned out, but I do have a basic idea now...kind of.
> 
> Thank you guys so much for your favs/follows, kudos and reviews (seriously, I feel like I can't express this enough)! I shall attempt to post chapter 3 on August 17th, so until then! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, funny story, this is why we don't edit half asleep, friends, XD: I was re-reading through chapter two of this and came across this line: "Peter stands there for another step, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot", but when I found it was this: "Peter stands there for another step, awkwardly from foot to food." Food. Not foot. Whoops. XD!
> 
> #Nailed it.
> 
> Thank you guys so much for your support! Honestly! I can't even express it enough to you how much it means to me. Like 150+ kudos before chapter 3? Whoa!
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you!
> 
> Disclaimer: Still own nothing! :)
> 
> Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors! :)

 

* * *

 

Sent from: Peter Parker to: Happy Hogan:

_Please respond._

_Please respond._

_Please respond._

_Happy!_

_Mr. Stark needs to here about this._

_*hear about this._

_Are you ignoring me?_

_Happy?_

_Happy…?_

_Please respond._

_Their (the two guys) names are Luke and Terence. The staffything is giving off weird vibes._

_Please respond._

_Mr. Terence isn't waking up, May's too busy to take them to the ER. I only have my permit._

_...Happy._

_Happy?_

_Happy?_

_Please answer._

_Mr. Luke just woke up from a nightmare and I don't know what to do. He's really freaking out._

_Update: he calmed down some, he won't take any water or food from me._

_Happy._

_Happy._

_Answer, please!_

_The staffy thing is making my head hurt._

_Please respond._

_Mr. Terence still hasn't woken up and it's been three days. What do i do?_

_*I do._

_May got pulled into overtime and she can't come home for a few more days. Timing, right?_

_Happy._

_Answer._

_Please._

_Happy please, whatever I did to make you so angry, I'm sorry. Mr. Luke and Mr. Terence need help._

_I don't know what to do._

_Please respond._

_This is Peter, by the way. Parker. I think you know that by now, but just in case._

_Were you kidnapped?_

_Or murdered?_

_Happy._

_Happy._

_Please respond._

Sent from: Happy Hogan to: Peter Parker:

_You're an idiot. Tony's on his way._

It is perhaps one of the only times he's happy to have been proclaimed stupid. He's ecstatic about it, actually; even if he did have to be awakened at one AM to achieve it.

Happy  _responded._

Mr. Stark is on his way.

_Mr. Stark is on his way._

He's never been more relieved.

Peter swings out of bed, flipping the blankets off of his torso in relief and scrambles to his feet to find a clean pair of clothing. Happy didn't specify  _when_ Mr. Stark would arrive and he's making no guesses. He just wants to be prepared for when the multi-billionaire  _does_ appear with a loud proclamation of Peter's idiocy.

He pulls on the clothing and grabs his phone shoving it into the pant's pocket after sending both May and Ned " _Mr. Stark's on his way"_ texts. Sleep is blurring his vision, but he doesn't really care about it much. He wants to be awake for when Mr. Stark arrives (It's a  _when,_ no longer an  _if,_ and he wants to shout it from mountain tops in his excitement _)._

Peter walks as quietly as he can into the living room/kitchen area; refraining from turning on the lights by habit to not accidentally wake up Luke or Terence through the probability is low—but Luke woke up when Peter did this to the awful nightmare, screaming, and he's been wary about that ever since. Peter has spent more time in this area over the last three days than all of the previous time he and May have lived in this apartment combined. He presses his lips together and moves forward, taking a familiar seat at the table.

Luke and Terence are barely visible in the poor lighting, and what  _can_ be seen is mostly lumpy outlines. The glowy-staff thing casts an eerie glow over everything despite of the blanket Peter tossed onto it yesterday to quell his spider sense. It just glows continuously, pulsing without a rhythm as if singing to a song they don't know the lyrics for, its aggravating.

Peter drums his fingers against each other for a few long minutes before he feels a buzz in his pocket. It startles him more than he cares to admit and it takes him a second to recognize what it is. Vibrate, his phone is on vibrate. Peter is probably one of the only teenagers still in existence who prefers having his sounds on over vibrate, but he switched over the last couple of days so it would be less distracting. It's still weird, though.

Peter tugs his phone out and presses the power button and stares at the screen through his hazy vision. There's an unread text from Ned. What is Ned doing up so late? They got the English project done on Tuesday when Peter found the two siblings, and there hasn't been anything extensive this week homework wise (which admittedly makes Peter nervous because that means next week promises to be worse). Did Peter accidentally wake him up?

Peter frowns and opens the app, eyes scanning the screen:  _Dude, finally! You got an ETA?_

Erm.

No.

Ned has only been over once since the initial…(he doesn't  _like_ this phrasing, but is the most accurate) kidnapping, but Peter hasn't stopped texting him. Ned is as aware of what's going on as Peter is. Which, beyond lots of stress, isn't much.

Luke's only been awake one other time (that Peter is aware of) since Peter gave him water a few days ago and that was for the nightmare. Peter had been stressed when May called him to let him know she couldn't make it home that night because another hospital's generator failed and her work (with the least patients at the moment) got the bulk of everyone. Peter had wandered out into the kitchen/living room and flicked on the light, but it had woken Luke on accident and he had let out a loud noise of distress and refused to calm down despite Peter's reassurances until he worked himself into unconsciousness. It hadn't been fun and just reaffirmed his suspicion that his comforting ability is quite low.

Terence, however, has remained stubbornly in comatose; though his fever has mostly remained at a stagnant 99.7 degrees, Fahrenheit, rather than the previous 100 exact. Peter wishes he had a license.

Peter attaches a unhappy emoji to his text and replies:  _Nope :/, but it's better than nothing._

Ned's answer is about fifteen seconds later:  _True, doesn't make it better, though._

Yep.

But Mr. Stark's  _coming,_ and that counts for  _something,_ right? Peter sincerely hopes so. He has no idea what kept Happy from answering for so long, and only has a vague one for Mr. Stark. Karen mentioned that he was on a undercover mission with Black Widow when she said she couldn't get a hold of Jarvis. Undercover? What was Mr. Stark  _doing_ that needed undercover? Peter's admittedly curious for an answer. He can't think of anything in the news that would warrant it recently; but they're the  _Avengers;_ they don't  _use_  the news, they  _make_ it.

Hopefully, if Mr. Stark did pull out for him, it wasn't anything too dire. That would be bad. They probably waited for so long to accomplish their undercover mission-thing, though. Fingers crossed.

Peter releases a slight, quiet raspberry and shoots an answer text off to Ned before flopping his forehead against the table. It  _twhauks_ slightly louder than Peter intended and he winces somewhat to it, holding his breath. Nothing else in the apartment moves, suggesting that Peter's _twhauk_  went unnoticed. Good.

He clenches his fist, willing himself to calm down.

Mr. Stark is coming.

Now it's just a matter of  _when._

000o000

"When" turns out to be two hours later. Peter had slipped off into a doze, only to awaken to a loud knocking on the apartment door. It's four AM now, and Peter knows no one else who it could be except maybe May without her key beyond Mr. Stark. He leaps up, scooting back from the table, his senses alert and adrenaline pumping through him from surprise. The knocks are loud, without any pattern to them and Peter scrambles to open the door before Mr. Stark manages to awaken the entire apartment complex. Judging by the volume of them, it could be entirely possible.

Peter flicks the lock to the door and pulls it open, and promptly struggles to keep his jaw from falling in surprise. Is he dreaming this? He blinks. Nope. Um.

Peter has never seen Mr. Stark in anything but looking...well ready for a photo shoot at any given second. This is not the case at the moment. Whatever mission he  _was_ on he literally came there to here from what Peter can tell. Mr. Stark's face is bruised slightly, his dress suit torn in some places and dirty in others. His entire posture radiates that of someone who hasn't slept in a few days, or at least not slept  _well._ Most surprising, however, is his companion.

Black Widow's right arm is swung over Mr. Stark's shoulders; his arm gripping her waist to keep her upright. Miss Romanov's right leg is bandaged heavily and most of her weight is held up by her teammate. Her face is bruised as well, and her red hair is a mess. Clutched in her free hand is a gun, the safety clicked off and her fingers flexed, prepared to fire. He didn't realize Mr. Stark would  _literally_  be going from his mission to here. If he had, Peter doesn't know if he would have pestered as much.

All of this information he processes in under four seconds.

Mr. Stark gives a tight smile, stretching one of the bruises on his cheek in what looks like a painful manner. "Hi."

Peter's tongue is heavy, and it takes him a moment to respond: "Uh, hello."

Mr. Stark adjusts Black Widow's weight and his smile grows strained, "Can we come in?"

Peter shifts immediately to give them room, flustered. He forgot to invite them in, it's basic courtesy, but his mind is a little scattered at the moment. It has been for days.

Mr. Stark with more gentleness than Peter admittedly expected guides Miss Romanov into the apartment and shifts towards the living room area. Peter follows after them and Mr. Stark releases Miss Romanov to the armchair on the far end of the coffee table. They don't ram into anything, which considering the distinct lack of a light source (except the glowy-staff-thing) is impressive.

When Miss Romanov is settled, Mr. Stark turns to him, "You got any ice we can use?"

Peter pauses for a moment, processing the words. "Um, yeah." He states. He turns without being asked and quickly navigates the dark room to the kitchen with ease. After the spider bite he has gotten a slight degree of night vision. It's not amazing, but he hasn't rammed any of his toes for some time, so that's a plus.

Peter pulls ice from the freezer and grabs one of the many dish towels hanging around from days of attempting to keep Terence's temperature normal and wraps it around the pack.

"Hey Kid?"

Peter looks up, "Hmm?"

"Last time I checked, none of us are vampires. Lights, please." Mr. Stark requests.

Peter flicks on the switch as he returns to the living room squinting to adjust to the sudden brightness. Mr. Stark and Miss Romanov look worse in the actual light. Miss Romanov's face is pale, but the weapon has disappeared somewhere on her person. Her short sleeved, little past her knees black dress isn't faring well and the bandages around her leg are staining in some places. It reminds Peter abruptly of Terence's eye, and he resists the urge to be sick.

Terence's eye, that he had to replace the bandages for because May is gone, Ned refused to help, and Luke hasn't been lucid enough.

Peter shoves the ice pack in Mr. Stark's direction. He feels an eyebrow directed towards him, but he can't bring himself to properly care. Mr. Stark hands the pack to Miss Romanov who presses it against her calf with a hiss.

Peter frowns, "What exactly  _happened_ to you guys?"

Mr. Stark's eyes flick up in annoyance as Miss Romanov sighs with irritation. Mr. Stark's lips part, "Happy."

Peter's eyes widen. What on the— "Wait. Did he beat you guys up? 'Cause that's unbelievably ru—"

Mr. Stark's eyebrows shoot so high on his forehead they are in actual danger of vanishing into his hairline. "Whoa, whoa there, Kid. No, Happy didn't beat us up—"

Peter shoulders sag in relief. He had his doubts, of course, because Happy just  _isn't_ that kind of person, and it would have been weird if he  _had_ managed to do this to Mr. Stark and Miss Romanov  _anyway_ because they're  _Avengers._

"—Happy  _got_ us beat up." Mr. Stark corrects.

Peter stares at him blankly, confused.

Mr. Stark pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers, "Have you ever been in the middle of an interrogation then been called excessively by an annoying Asset Manager?"

Has he ever been in the middle of an...then called... _no_...? Peter shakes his head with slight dubiety.

"Didn't think so," Mr. Stark says, "well, long story short: we fought our way out of the hands of trigger happy scientists quite set on seeing our blood because he kept calling."

Oh.

Fun.

Peter's gaze flickers to the bandage around Miss Romanov's leg again. There is an elevator to this floor, but walking must be painful. "Should she be walking on that?" He gestures to the wound.

Mr. Stark follows his hand and frowns, "No. No she should not."

Miss Romanov arches a brow; almost daring them to challenge her. No thanks, Peter quite likes his limbs located in the locus they are currently.

Mr. Stark turns to him, "Well; it sounds like you've had an eventful last few days. These them?" Mr. Stark gestures towards the the siblings slumped against the sofa. Peter nods.

"Luke and Terence." He offers.

Mr. Stark hums knowingly and takes a few steps forward lifting his phone up to the two men, "Jarvis," Mr. Stark addresses, "vitals."

"Right away, Sir." Jarvis's thick British baritone announces. Peter has had the phone-scan used on him before after he accidentally got knocked unconscious by a violent criminal with good aim and a garbage lid. Peter had been about twenty feet off the ground and fell smacking his head so Karen called Mr. Stark. The scanner on the phone isn't anywhere near as sophisticated as that of the one back at Stark Medical in Avengers Tower, but it gets the basics. Heart rate, blood pressure, any major wounds, and temperature.

The scans come back and Mr. Stark pulls his phone up to his face and scans for a long minute before looking up again at Peter, "His  _eye_ is missing?!"

Peter grimaces, "Yeah." He pauses, "It's not a pretty sight."

Mr. Stark huffs, "I'd imagine so. Why didn't you take them to a hospital?"

Isn't that the question of the week? Honestly, Peter is tired of making up excuses to himself. He doesn't  _know._ It just didn't feel right. He points in the direction of Luke's blanket covered staff, the thing he's been blaming for the entire fiasco. "That."

Mr. Stark whirls as Miss Romanov shifts forward in her interest. Mr. Stark tugs the blanket off of the weapon and his spider sense hums dully in reminder of how much it doesn't like the glowy thing.

Yeah. Point taken. It can shut up now.

The light pulses brighter and Mr. Stark and Black Widow share a look that Peter can't interpret. Maybe confusion or recognition. They seem to discuss something telepathically before Mr. Stark leans forward to touch at the glowy-part.

His spider sense lurches with just as much force as it had with May.

_THREAT, THREAT, THRE—_

Peter leans forward and catches Mr. Stark's wrist before the flesh can come in contact with the gem. "Don't." He says.

Mr. Stark stares at him.

Peter's teeth latch onto his tongue and push. He pulls his hand back then answers Mr. Stark's silent question with: "It...feels weird." He never really explained about his spider sense to Mr. Stark and he doesn't exactly know how to put it into words.  _"The thing that tells me sometimes when other things are bad, but mostly its like a paranoid mother?_ ". Super descriptive, his English teacher would be to the tears with her pride.

"Hmm." Mr. Stark turns back from the weapon with what looks like reluctance. "I agree. We can take them," he flicks a thumb to the siblings, "back to Stark Medical and me and Bruce can take a look at the weapon. Nat?"

The name is directed as if a question of " _thoughts?"_ instead of her name. Nonetheless, green eyes flick up towards the other Avenger. "Weapon" definitely sounds more official than glowy-staff-thing. Miss Romanov leans back in the chair pressing her ice pack against her calf further. Her lips thin and she lifts a hand out almost lazily towards Luke, "Why don't we ask him?" She tilts her head slightly, "I know you're awake, Luke."

He's  _what?_

_Since when!?_

Peter thought the dark haired man was still unconscious, he looked asleep. Has he been pulling this on Peter all the time and he just didn't notice?

Mr. Stark and his gaze jerk towards Luke who twitches, and with some reluctance peels his eyelids apart. The green is dulled, but focused, suggesting that he didn't just awaken. His lips thin at having been caught and a brief look of respect flickers towards Miss Romanov before settling into a blank mask.

Mr. Stark folds his arms across his chest, "Hi." He announces, Luke's wary gaze lifts to Mr. Stark, "You can probably guess at our identities; and Peter told us yours. You guys got a last name?"

Luke's mouth twitches on a frown, "I—" His voice is raspy. All the water he's had in several days was when Peter got him the glass, Peter offered, but Luke wouldn't take it. Luke clears his throat, looking more uncomfortable by the second, " _Am_ I to know you?"

Peter's eyebrows lift with surprise. Um. They're only a few of the best known people on the planet. No, why  _shouldn't_ Luke know them? Where has this guy  _been_ for the last several years to have missed it? Even  _Asgard_ knows about them and its another  _planet._

To his credit, Mr. Stark manages to cover his surprise to a simple twitch of his fingers. Miss Romanov's eyes widen a small fraction, but otherwise there is no reaction from either. Luke's discomfort seems to pour off him in waves and he shrinks in towards himself the further the awkward silence stretches.

"I—um, okay," Mr. Stark's face twitches with surprise as he works the words from his throat, "I'm Tony Stark and this is my teammate, Natasha Romanov. We're part of the Avengers." At Luke's furthering blank look Mr. Stark adds: "Earth's mightiest heroes."

Wow, these guys have  _not_ had access to the internet or other human beings for several years if they missed this completely. What the heck were they doing, anyway? Maybe Peter's initial thought that their from Asgard wasn't to far off. They could be from another planet, when Thor was here and spoke with Dr. Jane Foster, he mentioned there being at least eight other worlds beyond their own.

"We're here to help you;" Miss Romanov explains. Luke's restless gaze flicks to her and she lifts up her hands to show she is unarmed. Except the gun and likely other weapons hiding on her person, but from an outside point of view, she does look harmless. "Not hostiles." She promises.

Luke's lips thin.

"You guys need medical attention," Mr. Stark states pointedly looking towards Terence's eye, "We can provide that. We just need your consent."

Luke's gaze flits to Terence and his jaw clenches, "I am afraid, Mr. Stark, that we do not have anything to offer in return." His voice is quiet, his gaze flicks to his bare feet as if ashamed of this. Something in Peter's stomach churns uncomfortably at Luke's statement.

Miss Romanov leans forward, "We don't  _want_ anything, Luke."

Luke's gaze lifts to her, puzzled, "But, I—"

"Maybe a chance to study your weapon, but that's it." Mr. Stark interjects.

Luke's gaze flicks to Terence lingering on his eye. "When we are healed," he starts slowly looking back towards Mr. Stark, "will we be permitted to leave?"

What is it with Luke and his weird questions like these?  _Why would they not?_

Miss Romanov and Mr. Stark share another knowing look. "Of course," Miss Romanov states calmly, yet firmly. Luke looks at his brother again before blowing a breath out.

"I agree to your terms. My brother needs assistance I cannot provide at the moment." Luke says.

Wait. "You're a doctor?" The question slips from Peter's lips before he can stop it. The way Luke phrased his sentence hinted in that direction somewhat. All eyes land on Luke and the dark-haired man squirms slightly, his mouth opening for a second. He latches it shut and appears to be working on how to word something before answering.

"In a way, I suppose."

Huh.

Doctor.

It fits him.

"Great," Mr. Stark states cheerily, walking to Miss Romanov and she sets the ice pack down before holding her hand out. Mr. Stark takes it and swings it across his shoulders, pulling her onto her five inch heels. How she manages to  _move_ in those without stumbling is a mystery to Peter. It just looks highly uncomfortable. Mr. Stark turns to them, "I've got a car outside."

Oh. They move forward and Miss Romanov grabs the staff thing, as they pass it.

Luke rises to his feet, wobbles for a second as if dizzy than pulls the blankets from his sibling off and tugs the unconscious blond to his feet. Luke looks like he's going to topple forward and take his brother with him a second later. Peter skirts across the room and takes Terence's other side before he really recalls moving.

Luke sends him a look Peter cannot interrupt, but its something of mild alarm as if Peter is causing Terence bodily harm by helping Luke support the weight.

Peter does his best to ignore it.

The hobble to Mr. Stark's car takes about fifteen minutes and is one of  _the_ most awkward things he's ever done in his life.

When Black Widow is in the passenger's seat, and Luke and Terence secured in the back, Mr. Stark turns to him, brow furrowed. "You okay?"

Peter laughs in slight hysteria. Is he? He honestly doesn't know anymore. He's been under so much stress it's hard to tell what is and isn't okay anymore. This is insane. It doesn't feel like actual reality, more like some sort of weird dream. He sighs, "Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Stark."

Mr. Stark rests a hand on his shoulder, "You did good." He states. Peter wants to disagree (how is kidnapping a  _good_ thing?), but keeps his lips pressed together firmly then parts them with some effort.

"Can I see them later?"

Mr. Stark shrugs, "Sure, I guess, really depends on Luke and Terence. Drop by later after school sometime, I'll see if I can get you in."

Peter nods, swelling dread. School. Again. _Right._  He can't pretend with this fabricated illness forever. Mr. Stark pulls his hand back and Peter longs for the warmth of it suddenly. He nods "See you soon, Kid. And," Mr. Stark steps back towards the drivers door as Miss Romanov waves at him through the window lazily. Mr. Stark flicks out a pair of sunglasses that have somehow managed to survive their attack and are utterly useless at this hour. "Most people pick up stray cats. Give that a try next time, 'kay? I think you gave Happy a heart attack."

Peter laughs.

Mr. Stark grins and closes the car door. Within another minute, the vehicle isn't visible anymore and Peter is left by himself on the sidewalk.

000o000

"I would like to know _whose_ idea it was to do an interrogation by being interrogated." Bruce's voice is filled with a calm over tone, but there's a tightness to it underneath. He's frustrated. With good reason. Natasha doesn't exactly blame him, she and Tony return from an undercover mission bruised, battered and with two unconscious guests they didn't plan on originally. They were just gathering info, not stray adults.

Luke slipped back into unconsciousness as they drove back to the Tower after some fight with himself to stay awake. Unfortunately for the dark haired man, the lull of the car likely dragged him back into dreamworld and neither herself or Tony have been able to awaken either one of them. It's unnerving, but Tony didn't see any sources on why.

When they arrived at the Tower, Clint, Steve, and Bruce had been awaiting them (probably aware via Jarvis) with equal faces of unhappy. She didn't see Sam or Bucky, so she's assuming both are still asleep. It's not quite six AM yet and Bucky isn't an early riser unless he has to be (the world is coming to an end being "has to be"). Sam is in between, and she's guessing Jarvis hand picked who he awakened. Steve knew they were on their way back from the mission, but that's about all.

Clint had taken the support-Natasha job from Tony so the others could get the two siblings into medical. Once they were settled, Bruce forced Tony into a chair and did what he could for the injures then moved onto her.

The interrogation had gotten messy, quickly. More than she or Tony had anticipated. They had been questioning scientists from OsCorp for reasons on why their boss, Norman Osborn had attempted to steal several dozen arc reactors from Tony. All they have is vague half answers, which isn't much better than they had before. They didn't get to finish before Happy started spamming Tony's phone with calls.

Natasha winces as Bruce stabs more aggressively than needed for the stitches on the bullet graze. Her suit is thick and usually helps stop most of the weapons. Running around with only high heels on her feet hadn't been the wisest decision. Little late to change it, though.

"It was mine." Natasha answers to Bruce's question.

Bruce's lips thin like this  _was_ the expected answer, but it doesn't make him any happier. She smiles thinly. Bruce cuts the thread and looks up at her, "I can take these out in a few days, but try to do your best to stay off your feet, okay?"

She nods.

Bruce moves away to wash his hands. Tony is talking quietly to Steve to the side about the mission report and Clint shifts from his position next to her to lean forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

Natasha's lips thin as she watches her partner before gently bumping him on the shoulder, he rocks slightly at the push, "Tired?" She guesses.

Clint moans in response, "It's not even  _six_ yet, Tasha."

She smiles lightly, "I know."

"You couldn't have waited until a little later?" He questions in distress, digging his palms into his eyes.

Natasha smirks, but pats him sympathetically on the shoulder, "Aww, you poor thing."

Clint huffs with amusement, but when he looks up at her a few seconds later, he's frowning. "You're otherwise alright, yeah?" He gestures to the bullet graze. Natasha does a quick internal assessment. Tired, slightly grumpy and a little bruised, but yeah, she's fine.

She nods, "Tony took the brunt of the fire with his suit; I'm fine." Her words seem to ease some pressure from between Clint's shoulders.

Bruce saunters past them to where their two unconscious charges are laying on separate hospital beds in the large room. Stark Medical is a messy maze to anyone who doesn't know how it runs; which, after living with the other Avengers for nearly four years now (three years, nine months), she does. There's a hall of private rooms on a single floor (Stark Medical extends for three for S.I. employees, but the first floor is claimed for the team) and usually two—sometimes three—rooms where multiple patients can be stationed. This is one of the multiple person rooms. Both Luke and Terence are hooked up to respective IV's (one of the first things Bruce did after they were put on the beds) and pale. Luke looks like a white sheet of paper that's going to simply tear down the middle if someone blows to hard, and Terence appears to be a person with naturally sun kissed skin, but it's hard to tell under the extreme pastel.

Natasha has no idea what they've been doing over the last while, but clearly it hasn't been the most healthy course of action for either. Bruce hasn't forced Stark Medical clothing on the two, yet, he probably will soon, so the contrasting faded colors of their clothing sticks out like a sore thumb among the white sheets.

In all honesty, she wasn't sure if she wanted to hit Peter over the head with a broom or give him a pat on the shoulder for being a good citizen when Tony explained (in the midst of their battle to get out of the clutches of the gun-happy scientists) what was going on. She had half expected to arrive at the Parker's apartment, earlier than what is socially acceptable and fight a battle for Peter's life. She refused to stay in the car despite Tony's protests and the multi-billionaire had finally given up when she'd simply left the vehicle stumbling to the apartment and assisted her in walking. She's still neutral on what reaction she wants to give Peter. The teenager is selfless beyond what is healthy and it can get him into some tight, unwelcome situations.

Like being kidnapped by an ex-employee of SI who went insane and made an attempt for Tony's head with man-made wings when he (Peter) stopped the man, Adrian Toomes from taking Tony's head off. Which, although they are all grateful, was incredibly stupid.

"Jarvis, scan, please," Bruce commands, drawing her back to the present.

"Right away, Dr. Banner," Jarvis's blue light spreads across Luke's body in a wave then Terence's before settling. The light swerves to Bruce's hand in a small box looking package that Bruce gently taps to open. He stares at the scan for Luke first and his eyebrows lower the further down he gets. Not a good sign. Whatever is on the scans isn't a magical fairy princess hoping to spread as much glitter as possible. She isn't too savvy with medical lingo, so most of what she can read backwards from the scan doesn't make sense.

Bruce, however, frowns. It's one of the frowns where he isn't exactly sure what's going on and it displeases him.

"What?" Tony asks, his voice tinged with slight curiosity. His and Steve's quiet conversation to the side is clearly over. Natasha sits upright further, Clint rising with her, all of their eyes are locked onto the gamma scientist. Bruce may not have actually completed medical school, but he was pretty close before he switched over to gamma radiation as a suggestion from one of his teachers. Then the Hulk happened and no one would allow him entrance to finish the last semester he needed to get certified. He could now, most people would  _beg_  to have Bruce at their schools, but Bruce has never felt the need to finish after his initial second try.

Bruce's lips thin and flips the hologram, enlarging it in some areas so they can see before drawing back before shoving his glasses up his nose. "This." He states gesturing towards the scans, "He's a mess."

"What do you mean?" Steve inquires, his voice laced with confusion and some concern, "I can't see anything beyond his fingers." Ah, so she wasn't the only person to note his damaged hands. She's not entirely certain what happened, but it reminds her of the time about two years ago now when Clint smashed his right hand inside of a drawer in Tony's lab and sprained four of them. According to Tony, (she wasn't present) he swore. A lot.

Bruce runs a hand through his dark hair, "Yeah, most of the damage you  _wouldn't_ see with just your eyes. His heart rate is slower than it should be from severe malnutrition, his torso is a mess of wounds that never healed right and this—" Bruce pauses to widen something and flip it so they can see. It's a holographic, but it gives a basic outline of blue tinted skin. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a lichtenburg?"

 _Really?_  Luke has the mark left after someone gets struck by lightning? How did he achieve that? Very few people walk away from being blasted coherent, Luke seemed a little quiet and uncomfortable, but not like he'd been recently blasted by over a billion watts of electricity.

Clint releases an impressed hum next to her, folding his arms across his chest. Natasha stares at the pattern dotting across Luke's chest for another moment, lips thinning. It's over where his heart would be, and spreads out a little, but it doesn't extend extensively. Most litchenburg unfurl all across the body and down the spinal cord, this is only across his chest in two separate large circular shapes that do connect through little threads of the scarring.

Huh. No one corrects Bruce, because they  _can't;_ it is a lichtenberg.

Bruce pulls the hologram back, "And that's not even half of it. There's more scar tissue than there should be. He's been stabbed at least three times from what I can tell and it sort of looks like he went swimming in boiling water. Some of it's old, but none of the more severe is older than five-six years. There has been enough cleanup from cellular repair for that. I don't even want to know what this is," he gestures to long scars across Luke's back, "but it has one of the sloppiest attempt at stitches I've ever seen in my life."

This makes her still. Luke's polite tenseness around them sinks deeper into half formed theories. " _Will we be permitted to leave?"_ They were held captive by someone for a while (if she were to guess) that (in the least) didn't seem to like Luke much, she's not expecting Terence to be much better, though.

Bruce's lips thin, but they remain quiet. It's painfully clear to her, however, that they are all aware of what's going on. Bruce sighs through his teeth, "And there's hypothermia."

Hypothermia. Now? Honestly? Strange. At least it's not a fever.

"He's part time Frosty the Snowman?" Tony quips halfheartedly.

Bruce shakes his head slightly, "You have no idea." He mutters.

Bruce closes the folder and opens Terence's. He scans it, lips pressing together, but answers their silent question when he's finished about three minutes later: "He's scarred, bones show multiple signs of previous fracture and his blood work is a mess. He bears similar scars to Luke, and—" Bruce pauses, his head tilting and he pulls up Luke's hologram again. Why?

Bruce enlarges an image and his lips purse, "There's some sort of marking here, it's on both of them. I don't know what it is, though," he announces. Recognition, that's why Bruce paused. Bruce shakes his head slightly, "There's just this something swimming in Terence's bloodstream, it's not infection…" Bruce trails off, biting at his lip before his eyes widen with horror.

Natasha tenses, but her body prepares for a fight. What? What is it? Is Terence dying or what's wrong? Why—?

"Tony," Bruce's voice is the deceptive calm it takes when he's beginning to panic, "You still have the quarantine area, right?" The quarantine area that none of them have had to use, but it still exists, as far as she's aware it's still there. Why would he need—?

"Yes." Tony answers, dread leaking onto his tone. "Why?"

Bruce slams the holograms shut and they disappear from existence, "I want you to call May and Peter, tell them to take a shower and be on watch. Everyone else is going to do the same when we're done here."

Anxiety swims through her stomach. Something is wrong and she doesn't know  _what._ She hates being in the dark about anything. Terence, she's guessing has some sort of infection that's making him ill. It's probably worse than that, though.

Steve hesitates, then asks: "Why?"

Bruce meets eyes with their captain, "Because I'm pretty sure Terence is infected with something deadly and I can't tell if it's contagious and if we have it too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, I cannot even begin to explain to you how many times I rewrote this chapter. I think I accidentally turned on its evil switch ;D. Anyway, um, yep.
> 
> Next chapter will be posted August 31! :)
> 
> Until then! Thank you guys again for your support!


	4. Chapter 4

 

* * *

 

The grass is fluttering, swaying softly beneath his bare feet as he moves back and forth as if standing on the deck of a ship. The motion is soothing, but irritates his bare feet as he stands still. The ocean is oscillating to and fro in the distance; waving softly as it gently kisses the shore. The sound isn't loud, but it is enough to draw his attention to it. It is calm. It is peaceful, all he has to do is breathe.

In and out; the quiet exhale as he stands, continuous, calm, _nothing else to do but breathe._

It is so quiet here, and he does not understand why it bothers him so.

 _—Quiet, their voices swallowed up by the vast_ nothingness _that is here. He can scream and scream but it doesn't do anything but echo in his head. There is no sound among the stars there is_ nothing _but cold and the air that refuses to enter his lungs and his fingers gripped tightly around his counterparts wrist in an effort for—_

Something is nagging, it is pulsing at his conscious attempting to draw his attention, but he does not want it. He is safe in his ignorance; he does not understand why he knows this well. He just wants to sit here and breathe.

Breathe and breathe and _breathe_.

He is confused.

He is very confused.

_Ignorance is bliss._

He does not know how long he has been standing here, but his muscles are beginning to ache in a way that only a long hard spar can offer, and his vision is blurring. The sun has long since set in the horizon leaving nothing but the stars to light in its leave. It is not cold, but he wishes he had a cloak to cover his arms.

— _Cold. Cold. Cold. It is the only thing he processes properly is that it is_ cold _and there is nothing but stars above them. He is a fool. That was a mistake._ That was a mistake. _He did not think he wouldn't be able to—his brother. Where is—_

He turns his head slightly, peeling it with effort away from the horizon as he sees movement in the corner of his eye. A figure is standing next to the edge, tall, thin, dark hair is pouring over his shoulders and he (the figure) is as familiar to him as his own breath. He shifts forward on his aching feet, staggering until he stands side-by-side with the young man.

"Loki." He breathes, staring at his younger brother with confusion. How long as he been here? Has he simply been ignoring his sibling this entire time? He has been here for many days now, he knows that; he doesn't understand why Loki is here now and not before. He's been standing for days, Loki should have been here before.

Loki does not look at him, and worry nags at him suddenly. " _Loki."_ He presses. Something is wrong with his voice; it's a bare whisper as if something has wrapped around his throat and left him to wave his arms and squall for communication. It is strange, but with his sudden exhaustion he can't bring himself to care too much. He lifts an aching arm out to grasp his younger brother's shoulder and Loki turns to look at him, their eyes locking for a moment and—

— _Loki is pressing his hand against his face, green eyes wild and figure blurred through his messy vision. His eye is pulsing and his blood is all over Loki's fingers, his younger brother's calm baritone replaced by high pitched panicked words he can't make sense of—_

 _—_ Loki frowns, tilting his head a little, but doesn't say anything for a long while. "You are sleeping." He finally notes, his voice tired.

He blinks in confusion. No. He is standing on the edge of this cliff side and admiring the view because—

_Because—_

_Because..._

He doesn't know.

He doesn't know why he's here, he doesn't know why _Loki's_ here, or how they got here or why they're supposed to be doing.

"I'm—" He frowns, attempting to make sense of the information.

" _Mr. Stark? Why is there a snake on Mr. Terence's bed?"_

Loki turns to look at him fully, but it isn't the face of his younger brother that turns to meet him. Instead, the tall being is frowning and his stomach lurches to his throat in horror. No. Not here. Not now. He can't—

_He can't do this right now._

He hasn't ever been able to.

Loki.

Where is Loki? He's going to hurt him again because he didn't do whatever it was that Thanos asked or—he can't even remember _what_ it was. _He can't let him hurt his brother._

_Not again._

Thanos. What is he— _why is Thanos—_ he was standing on the edge of the grass on the hill! Yes! The hill! His gaze whips to the left to stare out at the sea, but his ocean is gone and replaced instead by the walls of the _Sanctuary._

_No._

"Oh, my son," Thanos sighs, shifting towards him. He wants to scramble back, but horror has grasped his feet and refuses to do anything else but leave him rooted and a foul taste in his mouth. Thanos pulls out a dagger from his belt and stops when the Titan and him are no more than a few feet apart. His mouth opens once, twice, his tongue shifting, but all he can make is a weak clicking noise of protest to the Titan.

Thanos's large hand lifts to cradle his face for a moment, almost as if replacing an apology before the Titan's eyes harden and he swipes the dagger harshly and staggering pain shoots through his face. Pain. Pain swirls through his face, across his entire _being_ he can't— _he can't—_ his hands slam against the bloody socket as he crumples to his knees a cry of agony slipping through his lips.

_He can't—_

_That was his—_

"Perhaps this will give you motivation to look harder next time."

Blood.

There's blood.

Blood and blood and _blood._ All over his hands and dripping down his face like it dripped across Loki's back after—

His breath is escaping him raggedly, but he can't get enough air into his lungs.

His eye is gone. _His entire eye is gone._

No air, his lungs are as useless as he is. All he had to do was find the stupid Infinity Stone but he couldn't even do _that_ and now—

" _Ow! It just bloody_ bit _me!"_

" _Augh! Peter! Get your sorry butt in here!"_

' _Wake.'_

Thor's eyes rip open and he tumbles into the realm of consciousness violently.

000o000

"I'm going to kill them." Bucky decides phlegmatically, slamming the book in his hands closed and leaning forward on the couch to throw it onto the coffee table. Tony's copy (that he borrowed/stole) of _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ skids to the edge and remains at the end, tittering to tipping, but stops. Sam, across from him looks up from his phone to raise an eyebrow and releases a sigh flicking the device off, seeming more irritated than actually worried.

" _All_ of them?"

"Yep." Bucky confirms and rises to his feet, looking around the room for a weapon to begin his murders. When none sharp enough to be lazy about this arise in the sitting/living area, Bucky turns to stalk towards the kitchen adjoined to it. He doesn't _actually_ have any plans for committing a homicide, but it's something else to do beyond rip apart the book he can't focus on with worry.

 _What_ possessed the kid to decide that kidnapping was a good idea? Better yet, _why_ did Peter have to kidnap perhaps the one group of men with a maybe-deadly virus? This is ridiculous. When he sees Tony's kid again, he's going to hit him over the head. With a frying pan--no, a broom so Peter can sweep all further bad ideas from his mind. Yes, the broom will work excellently.

Great, with that settled, now all he needs to do is find a knife.

Bucky rips open the kitchen's cupboard and stares at the chef's knives for a long moment, contemplating. He hears Sam groan behind him before his teammate drags himself to his feet and comes to a halt behind him as Bucky pulls out all of the large weapons he can see and hold in one armful and turns setting them down on the counter, congiting.

This was not exactly how he wanted yesterday to start, or today, but so far there have been no positive updates via Jarvis and he and Sam have been explicitly banned from the quarantined area. _Quarantined._ Who's bloody idea was it to—this is fine. He is not worried. Nope, that is why he is _not_ planning out their murders at their stupidity and stopping himself from grabbing the nearest object and giving it a good throttle until he shakes out all his anxiety. Bucky isn't a stranger to stressful situations or even hard ones, but there somehow easier to deal with when it isn't anyone else but him.

This is the first time it's been illness that has kept them on lock down and it makes the knot of anxiety in his stomach twist every time his thoughts brush over it. He can't fight a plague, all he can do is remain in the upper levels of Avengers Tower and attempt not to self combust from worry. It's been exactly thirty-six hours since Bucky was awoken to Jarvis telling him that Tony and Natasha had accidentally brought back maybe contagious patients into Stark Medical and that he was prohibited from seeing them until they could determine if it is what they think it is.

So far (according to Jarvis's updates and any time he asks), they haven't been able to isolate anything, but they're still wary.

Which is just amazing.

Bucky resists the urge to shove the knives to the side and smash his head against the counter top instead. What is he doing? He barely slept last night from the knot wrapped around his throat, he's exhausted and is about as close to calming down as the sun rising as purple tomorrow.

Bucky sighs and opens his eyes he can't recall closing and shoves the knives to the side leaning against the counter top.

Sam hums conversationally and sits down on a stool across from him. "Think we could get them from the vents?"

Bucky shrugs. He could, with more effort than he feels like offering. "Probably."

"Good." Sam declares, "Clint's up there all the time; can't be that hard, right?"

Bucky glances up at his teammate, "I'm not serious." He states tonelessly.

Sam nods, "I assumed so." He reassures.

Great. Good. Excellent. Killer diller.

Same releases a sigh, "Look, I'm just as worried as you, but maybe murder isn't the way to solve all of our problems." Sam's tone is gentle, but teasing and Bucky lifts and irritated eyebrow towards the man.

"Yeah." He agrees, dryly. Did Sam think he was serious?

"I hate to interrupt this exchange," Jarvis's smooth baritone interrupts and both Bucky and Sam's gaze flickers towards the AI's camera. "But Mr. Parker entered the Tower and I have sent him up to this level, he was quite insistent."

He and Sam scramble.

"You _what?"_ Sam demands, "Tony said he and May were waiting this out at their apartment, what the heck is he doing _here!_?"

"I am unaware, Mr. Wilson." Jarvis answers, calmly. "He refuses to answer my queries."

Yeah, just like Tony. They really are so alike even if it isn't by blood. Bucky's teeth grind together and he resists the urge to let out a cuss as the elevator doors open nearly a minute later and the teenager slips onto the floor.

His face is washed out and he looks a little tired, but not like he's about to pass out from whatever plague it is he may have caught. Peter's tugging at the edges of his sleeves and comes to a halt as he sees them, looking for every right like a deer caught in headlights. His limbs slowly shift from their frozen positions and he clenches his fingers.

"Oh." He breathes, brown eyes flickering back and forth between them. He lifts his hand for a small, awkward wave, "Hi, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Falcon-Sir."

Bucky swears this kid at some point is going to self implode when he can't find the proper way to politely address someone. He and Sam remain quiet, staring the teenager down with cryptic silence. He better hope he has a good reason for this.

Peter squirms under their stare and wrings his hands. He lasts a sum total of about a minute in the silence before he breaks, and the words coming spilling out like water down a windowsill: "Look, I know that I'm supposed to be at the apartment, but I'm going _insane._ I snuck out... I mean, I _did_ text May after I left but—I don't know, I _needed_ to leave and I want to know how Terence and Luke are doing because Tony hasn't told me _anything_ and I think Happy is going through this _phase_ or something with his texts, because he isn't answering either. I thought that maybe they'd died and I at least wanted to know if—if that _had_ happened, but no one was telling me anything, so I just kind of got here. Um. Yeah."

He and Bucky remain quiet.

So not only did he show up unexpectedly he did so without telling his guardian.

Bucky mentally face palms. Oh, gosh, this reminds him so much of Steve when they were younger before the serum and Steve refused to be put on bed rest because " _I was bored",_ and would show up at Bucky's apartment at random before his mother's death.

Peter stares at both of them. "Please say something." He begs.

Sam releases a breath and his lips twitch as he attempts to cover a smile, "Calm down, Squirt, we're not defenestrating anyone today." Peter's shoulders relax slightly.

"Maybe." Bucky half heatedly jabs. Sam gives him a look before returning his gaze to the teen.

"Peter, I would like to remind you that we pick _cats_ off the streets; not homeless guys." Sam states and Peter's expression twists to something uncomfortable, "But nonetheless, I have been looking for an excuse to drop into Stark Medical and whack some sense into the idiots. If this _is_ some sort of illness, you're going to handle it better so I will just remain up here and make dinner if any of you survive long enough for that." Sam states, jabbing a finger in Bucky's direction before waving it towards Peter's.

Bucky bites on his tongue to hold back a comment about how Steve is currently in quarantine even _with_ the serum and Bucky's isn't as adequate is the Super Soldier's. Instead, he releases a quiet breath and moves away from the counter and waves his hand for the _'come_ ' sign in ASL to Peter, walking towards the elevator.

Clint's been teaching him for the last couple of months with some assistance from Natasha, and it's been a little weird to learn a language because he _wanted_ to, rather than it was forced upon him. Bucky steps into the elevator and Peter hesitantly scampers in next to him. Jarvis closes the doors slowly, clearly unhappy with their decision. The elevator lurches before beginning to move towards Stark Medical.

Peter plays with the edge of his shirt noiselessly as they descend and Bucky picks at the edge of a metal slate on his left arm until the doors open once more and both of them exit the small room with obvious relief. Bucky grits his teeth together and tosses some stray pieces of stray hair from his eyes. Peter isn't comfortable in his presence and Bucky doesn't blame him for it.

They take several steps down the white-walled hallway in the direction where he can pick out the sound of voices. Peter perks up slightly at it and Bucky has to remind himself that the teenager is enhanced and can hear just as well (if not better) than he can to bite back his surprise.

"What did you do?" Steve's voice is exasperated as they draw closer and some of the knot of worry twisted in Bucky's stomach releases at it. Steve doesn't sound drastically ill. Annoyed, yes, but not like he's about to lean over on his deathbed and not move further.

Peter's eyebrows lift with interest beside him at the argument. As much as their sincere bickering usually bothers him, all this does is loosen the knot further. If they're _arguing,_ they aren't _dying_.

There's a moment of hesitation then a pained grunt before Tony replies wearily: "Mess with the thing."

"Did I _explicitly_ tell you _not_ to?" Steve demands, flustered.

"Yes." Tony answers, patiently.

" _And?"_

"...Oops?"

There's slight _thwauk_ and Tony lets out a loud yelp, " _Hey!_ I _need_ that arm!" He shouts in indignation as they finally reach the lab. Bucky stops in surprise, his eyebrows lifting as they come to the doorway. Actually, scratch that, they come to what _was_ the lab.

There's a large blast radius spanning from about the center where a staff is on the ground innocently glowing as if it had nothing to do with this. The lab itself is a disaster; soot and ash cover a large portion of it, and equipment is spilling across the floor like a carpet of destruction. Bucky's fairly certain had this been Bruce and Tony's normal lab that they would both be to tears in devastation, but this is the medical one and neither cares for it much.

Tony is sitting on one of the stools that managed to survive the blast, Steve kneeling in front of him taping a bandage over a large cut along Tony's arm, his face concentrated. Bruce is a few feet away sitting on one of the two tables, Natasha and Clint hovering around him like concerned mothers. Any other time the sight would have been amusing, but all Bucky can conjure properly seeing it currently is a loud swear.

"What did you two _do?"_ He demands, storming into the medical space to begin fretting over his teammates. Bruce has a few long cuts on his face and looks all around unhappy, but is otherwise okay. He doesn't know who took the brunt of the blast, or even _what_ happened exactly, but it doesn't stop the growing worry. They traded out a plague for an explosion? Were they attacked? If that is the case, why didn't Jarvis say anything?

Steve scrambles to his feet as Bucky enters and whirls, surprise evident on his face, "Buck," He addresses, startled, clearly, before it's replaced with frustration, "You shouldn't be in here; we're on lock down."

Noted and contravened. Bucky hums absentmindedly, ignoring him, and turns to Natasha, who he knows will give him the most blunt answer. He hasn't seen Tony or Natasha since they left for their undercover work six days ago, but nothing appears to have gone drastically terribly. Natasha's leg is wrapped, and Tony looks a little tired, still, but otherwise alright. She shouldn't be standing with her wound, but she is, and probably won't be for much longer. He digs the fingernails of his right hand into his palm for a moment before asking the redhead: "Anything severe?"

"Beyond my pride?" Tony questions from across the room and Bucky huffs quietly, "Nope; Bruce managed to tip a table."

Oh, good. Bucky turns and—after a sweep with his gaze across the room—concludes that the table Bruce is currently perched on is likely the furniture that was tipped, judging from the burn. He folds his arms across his chest, "What happened?"

"Oh my gosh!" Peter exclaims and Bucky nearly jumps, having forgotten that the teenager was present before turning to look at him. He's standing in the doorway to the room, brown eyes wide. Tony, Bruce and Clint all yelp slightly turning and Natasha and Steve merely gyrate with their surprise.

Peter's hand falls away from his mouth and he makes eye contact with Tony for a second, tone horrified: "It _was_ a bomb."

_What?_

What was a bomb? They were playing with _bombs_ in a _medical_ lab? Idiots. Tony's gaze whips from the teenager to him in a single movement, a quiet anger dancing in his eyes. "You let the kid into a quarantined area? Seriously?"

It wasn't _his_ idea. Bucky bristles quietly, but keeps his temper from exploding outwards and gestures vaguely towards the teen, "He's already infected." He points out.

" _You're_ not." Steve argues. Yeah, he _knows._ Does it matter? He and Sam are bound to get sick anyway. 

"And?" Bucky challenges.

"For the love of—you seriously thought you could bring my kid into a quarantined area and—" Tony starts, sitting up slightly with frustration. Bucky resists the very strong urge to back down and simply let Tony vent his frustration out until he's satisfied. It was easier with Hydra to let them do that then defend himself. 

"Mr. Stark!" Peter exclaims, cutting the multi-billionaire off and all of them turn towards the spider expectantly. Peter's face is pale and he looks somehow...stretched, " _Was_ the glowy-staff-thing a bomb?"

"Glowy-staff-thing"? Really? Bucky flicks his gaze towards the weapon once more, studying closer. _That_ is what set off the explosion powerful enough to do all of this? It looks fairly harmless laying lax amongst the piles of scrap, glowing softly. The longer Bucky stares, however the more unsettled he feels. There's something...off about it, and it makes him wary.

Tony's expression softens and Bruce snorts quietly, "Mights've well have been." He murmurs under his breath, letting his head flop onto his hands.

"No, Kid, it isn't a bomb." He reassures.

Peter gestures vaguely towards the room, "Then what did all _that?"_

Tony sighs, rubbing at his temples. "The staff."

_Oh._

_Great._

"You said it wasn't a bomb!" Peter's voice is pitching impressively high. Tony raises to his feet with a slight grimace and crosses the room to rest his hands on the teenagers shoulders. Peter looks up towards the multi-billionaire's face at the action, brown eyes wide.

"It wasn't." Tony assures.

"But—"

" _Underoos."_

Peter hesitates, and Bucky bites his tongue to keep quiet. Peter sighs quietly and runs a hand through his hair as Tony pulls back, "What did you do to it?" Peter questions.

Tony and Bruce share a look from across the room and Bucky quietly lifts an eyebrow to reaffirm the need for a answer. "We...poked it." Bruce states finally.

"With one of Tasha's batons." Clint appends with disbelief. "That's not _poking_ so much as _electrocuting."_

_What?_

"Fine," Tony's eyes roll up towards the ceiling, "we _electrocuted_ the staff and it didn't like that so much, so it exploded in our faces."

Peter smacks his forehead, and Bucky bites back a small smile at the reaction. Tony looks mildly offended at the gesture, "What?" He demands, folding his arms across his chest.

Peter groans, "I just—I _told_ you not to touch it."

Tony is quiet for a moment, "Okay, technically ' _we'_ didn't, Natasha's baton did and—"

" _Mr. Stark."_ Peter moans looking up at the multi-billionaire, Tony snaps his jaw shut from the prodding (a rare feet) and Peter glances up at him, releasing a long breath. "I just came here to see Terence and Luke, are they okay?"

Bruce slides from off the table, waving Natasha and Clint's hands away as they attempt to support him when he sways slightly. "I haven't checked on them in a few hours, you can come with me." He offers.

Peter brightens at the statement. "Okay."

"This is still a quarantined area." Tony points out.

"He's already infected." Bruce says and moves past Peter to slide into the hallway. Bucky moves after them curiously and Tony turns to the other occupants.

"Start cleaning this up," he commands, pauses, then adds: "please."

They reach the end of the medical, passing a room that looks like it's recently been in use, but is empty before stopping at the one beside it. Bruce wipes some of the soot from off of his face with the back of his lab coat sleeve before grabbing the handle's door and pulling it open.

"Terence, from what I can tell, is just carrying the virus, Luke's blood is equally as messy and it looks like Terence's illness caught hypothermia. I've been keeping them separated so they don't feed off of each other, but so far neither one has woken." Bruce explains, moving to wash his hands with the sink before grabbing a clipboard from off of the desk and moving to scribble something down on it.

Tony walks up beside him, "Luke's meds were running out, we need to refill them." He states.

Bruce nods, "I'll go find some when we're done here." He distractedly assures.

"Mr. Stark?" The question is lined with confusion and both he, Bruce, and Tony turn to look at the teenager expectantly. Peter hasn't shifted from the doorway, still; his face suddenly colorless. Peter doesn't meet their gaze, his eyes are fashioned to Terence's bed eyes wide and full of surprise. What? What is the problem? Bruce starts to slide forward as Tony queries, "Yeah, Kid?"

Peter lifts a finger out towards the bed, "Why is there a snake on Mr. Terence's bed?"

Why is there a...

A what? There are no snakes in a hospital, there is no way that there could be a snake in here. Peter must be confused or—Bucky's thoughts come to a halt as he lifts his gaze up to stare at the end of Terence's bed.

Oh.

Oh, well, _fantastic._

Curled up in a small ball at the end is indeed a deep green snake. Its head isn't turned towards them, but it looks perfectly at peace leaning against Terence's right calf. Bruce's clipboard slips from his hands and lands on the desk with a loud clatter.

Silence grasps them for a long moment, and all Bucky can do is breathe loudly.

A snake. Here. Now.

" _How?"_ Bruce demands, his voice suddenly much quieter in an effort not to disturb the reptile. Yeah, Bucky is wondering the same question himself. They've been in quarantine, there is almost _no where_ the snake could have come from except someone's ear.

Tony shakes his head, tone equally soft: "I don't know; we need to get it out of here."

"How?" Peter hisses, "I don't know how to pick up a snake—" Bucky doesn't either, he was raised in a city "—don't they bite?"

And there's that.

Tony's gaze flits across the room and settles on a large empty box that he moves towards, "They do." He confirms, seeming nonchalant, "Unless someone has a better idea, I vote we just pick it up and put it in here. We'll transfer it from the box to outside. I can't exactly call animal control at the moment."

Plague of Unknown Doom takes yet another victim. Whoo. Tony grasps the box in both hands and turns to look at Bucky, "You and Bruce have been volunteered for grabbing, congrats, Underoos, go wait out in the hall."

"But, Mr. Stark—" Peter starts, stopping instantaneously as all of them give the teenager a hard look and he bites his tongue, complaint and moves to exit the room.

Snake-gathering. This is not something he expected to do today, tomorrow, or really any time in his life. How the heck did this snake get _in_ here, anyway? Magic?

He and Bruce move forward towards Terence's bed, both of them wary. Tony shifts, lifting the box prepared for their package.

Snake bites aren't deadly, right? He's pretty sure they are. Maybe not all of them, though. Hopefully this isn't one of the more poisonous ones if they do get bit.

The closer they get the more ragged the snake looks up close. It's a deep green/gray color, with ugly scarring across it's back. Bucky doesn't want to know what happened to the creature to cause that. The breathing is deep and rhythmic as it leans against Terence's feet, curled like a tired cat. In a way, it's almost cute.

But they aren't here to admire it.

" _One,"_ Bruce mouths towards him, Bucky lifts his hands in preparation, attempting to calm his fraying nerves, " _two, three."_

Bucky grasps the end of the snake as Bruce lifts the front and the animal balances between them. There is about two seconds where everything is going according to plan before it promptly fails. 

The snake's jerk into focus, the head whipping up a second later. There is a breath of stillness before it begins to squirm in their grip, the slightly cool dry scales shifting under his skin uncomfortably. This is not going to work, Bucky realizes, they aren't going to get this thing to Tony without the snake escaping them. Already, the scales are sliding away from his grasp and unless he tightens it to the point of hurting, he can't keep a firm grip.

The snake releases a loud hiss, but neither Bruce nor Bucky relent their hold.

Bruce adjusts his grip on the reptile before the snake lashes out violently and, almost to quick for Bucky to fully see, sinks its teeth deeply into Bruce's right hand.

" _Augh!"_ Bruce yells and drops his half of the snake hand twitching. Bucky scrambles to grip the light weight to keep it from slipping away from him. Bruce grabs the neck of the creature and rips it forcefully from his hand tossing it and slams a hand over his wound which is pulsing green around the bite mark.

Hulk.

Great.

"Whoa; easy there Big Guy." Tony has suddenly appeared beside them and is gripping at Bruce's shoulder in an attempt to calm him, box forgotten.

"The bloody thing _bit_ me!" Bruce's voice is rising and Bucky hears the edge of the Hulk present in it, the deeper edged roar and Bucky subconsciously takes a step back his grip tightening on the reptile in his hands. The thing is squirming like it's about to be murdered and latches it's teeth against Bucky's left arm in an attempt to dislodge itself from him, but the fangs merely clang against the metal softly.

Well, one of the benefits of a metal arm, he supposes.

The snake's head twists to look back at him, slitted green eyes wide before a weird sort of buzzing feeling shoots up through his arm like being slightly electrocuted. A piercing headache ripples through his skull. The reptile slips through his fingers in surprise at the precipitating pain and he releases a cry at it, grabbing at his hair and tugging in an attempt to stop focus on anything else but the pulse.

Bucky staggers back, but he can't feel his feet anymore

He can't feel anything.

He's drifting.

No, that's not right.

_His hand is wrapping around a woman's throat and squeezing, but the Soldier doesn't care. Her breath is gasping out in wheezes and—_

_He's standing over the body of the squirming redhead, seeing if his target was killed. The Soldier cares naught for the gasping woman he shot the man through, because his mission is complete—_

_His back is pulsing, aching, and his arm, oh gosh, his arm is—_

" _Sargent Barnes—"_

" _Bucky?"_

" _—is Bucky?"_

_He's tugging the trigger back and—_

_He throws the bomb watching it roll under the car and watches with detachment as the SUV flips over its nose and lands top down skidding several feet, the passenger likely dead—_

_His head is aching and a cry of pain slips through his lips, but he knows that it doesn't matter because no matter how long and hard he screams they aren't going to stop—_

" _How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."_

" _Your work has been a_ gift _for mankind."_

_He's pouring through the water searching desperately for the body that hit before him. Steve where is Steve!? Where is the target! He's running out of air, but he needs to find the—_

"— _cky—!"_

"Bucky!"

"Bucky!"

" _James Buchanan Barnes,_ come on you bloody idiot!"

Bucky lurches into consciousness again, tumbling forward with a gasp of breath lurching through his lungs. His lurch is halted as Tony's hand on his shoulder stops him from collapsing forward on his face. The light picks at his eyes uncomfortably and the smell of disinfectant hospitals are so fond of digs into his nose sharply.

_What just happened?_

He hadn't been anywhere _near_ thinking about that and—oh, gosh, _he's going to be sick._ There's a reason most of those are buried. Bucky exhales sharply several times and he feels Tony's hand tighten on his shoulder for a moment (almost subconsciously) before pulling out of his sight line and Bucky's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.

_How long was he in those memories?_

It barely felt like a few seconds.

It must have been minutes.

Peter is standing in the room, hands lifted up to reveal his lack of weapons and his back is to Bucky. Bruce is missing at the moment, and Tony is present in front of him, but what is most prominent, however, is _Terence._

When Bucky had entered the room, Terence had been laying limply on the bed, breathing with the rhythm of the oxygen mask and not looking any closer to waking up in the next few hours than Clint (who believes them to be an abomination) watching all of the Harry Potter movies. He was still, lifeless and looked a little above a still corpse.

Now?

Terence is standing in the corner of the room furthest away from them, his blue eye opened, wide, and terrified. He's still pale, and his long blond hair is falling out of the ponytail it's strapped back in, hanging around his face messily. The midnight hairdresser, Ralph, was apparently feeling like spicing things up with Terence.

Whatever adrenaline pulled the man from the bed does not appear to be endless. He's rocking on his feet, dizzy, obviously, but _gripping the snake close to him in his arms,_ like if he doesn't the wretched thing is going to simply fall to pieces at their feet.

What is he _doing?_ Doesn't he know that snakes are dangerous? It literally just bit Bruce!

Bucky attempts to sit up (when did he fall onto his back?), but his stomach lurches at the screaming echoing in his head. He barely has time to grab the rubbish bin (thankfully close to where he passed out) before promptly releasing everything he's eaten in the last day into it. He doesn't understand this! What did he do to trigger this?

When Bucky has graduated from throwing up to dry heaves, he sits back and sees Tony give a grimace of disgust in his direction. Terence's one-eyed gaze keeps flickering back and forth across them, but it lingers on Bucky for a moment longer, as if confused. The snake is watching him as well, green eyes unblinking and Bucky would be lying if he said the stare didn't unsettle him.

What are they waiting for?

Where did Bruce go?

_What happened to him?_

Tony offers his hand and Bucky takes it allowing the multi-billionaire to pull him to his feet. Terence's posture shifts to defensive as this happens and Peter lifts his hands up further.

"We're unarmed, remember?" Peter reminds. Bucky doesn't, he has no idea when Peter said that for the first time— _what happened?_ "You're safe here." Peter soothes.

Terence doesn't look any calmer than before, but the snake's head raises towards Peter like it can understand him and _does_ look reassured. What the—? He has no idea what is going on and this aggravates and panics him. It's something that he worked until his bones ached for: understanding the situation at any given moment without being told anything. The confusion he slept with for seventy years is not one he likes repeating.

He glances at Tony helplessly, but the multi-billionare's gaze is focused on Peter.

Bucky turns as the door to the room opens and Bruce steps into the space, looking slightly pained, but calm. He's pressing a thick wad of gauze against the hand that was bitten, but looks otherwise hale.

His gaze flits over Bucky for a second, obvious relief in his eyes before he comes to a halt next to Peter, "Terence, I need you to take in a few deep breaths, alright?" His tone is gentle, "I checked your brother's room like you said and it's empty, we won't try and take the snake again, we promise; we're going to leave you and your brother alone."

Wait.

_What?_

The way Bruce is phrasing this makes it seem like Terence's brother _is_ the snake, but that makes no sense whatsoever because—it just _doesn't._ Luke was a person, to his understanding, why the heck would he be a snake?

"Terence." Bruce presses when the blond refuses to do more than inhale the little wheezes he's attempting to pass for breaths.

Terence's gaze lifts towards him, "I... _I—"_ His voice is deeper than Bucky was expecting and laced with some sort of accent he can't place. It has the tinges of British, but Bucky wouldn't label it being from the country.

"Calm, remember?" Bruce encourages. Great idea; _how is Bruce so calm?_

Bruce takes a small step towards the man and the snake, but Terence's grip on the reptile tightens to an almost painful degree a second later, so Bruce backs down. Bruce plays with his lip between his teeth for a moment before shoving his glasses up his nose with the back of his hand. "I apologize, you probably have no idea who we are. I am Bruce Banner, these are my teammates, Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes, and Peter Parker." Bruce gestures at the given person when he speaks and Terence's gaze flit over them.

He remains quiet for a long moment, "I do not understand." He whispers quietly, his voice is hoarse. When was the last time he drank water?

"Understand what?" Tony prods.

"Why…" he swallows almost what looks painfully "why are you calling me 'Terence'?" Terence asks. Bucky pauses and they all look towards Peter. That's what Peter said their names were, are they not?

Peter looks surprised, "Your brother…" his brown eyes linger on the snake, "he talked to me for a few minutes, he said that your name was Terence and he was Luke. Is that wrong?"

Terence's jaw clicks with sudden understanding and he pauses. For too long. He's debating whether or not to lie. Apparently realizing he's in to deep now he exhales quietly, "Yes, it is. I am Thor, of Asgard, and this," he lifts the snake slightly, but not enough to jostle or remove it from his protective embrace, "is my younger brother, Loki."

Asgard.

_Asgard!?_

Wait. _Thor and Loki..._ as in... _Odin's children?_

_Oh._

Well, glittering rainbows and unicorns—this is great. Swell.

_How the heck are they supposed to tell them?_

Almost three and a half years ago now, when Malekith the Destroyer with his army of Dark Elves, Fury had pulled the Avengers together to stop the assault, but they were failing. Badley. Malekith's glowing-looks-like-crystalized-jello-weapon was beyond what they were prepared to deal with, and though Tony had sort of come up with a way to contain it, they were still being overrun. That is when Asgard made an appearance.

The battle had been led by King Odin himself, with Queen Frigga at his side. During the process of it, Frigga had asked Fury if he'd seen anyone fitting Thor and Loki's descriptions, but less...looking near death—at least, that's what Bucky's read. He wasn't present; he didn't even learn of it until after he was sent to assassinate Steve.

In the aftermath of the bloody battle, Odin had given Tony possession of the object he called the "Aether" that Malekith used to attack and Bucky was sent to retrieve it and failed. That's when Steve grew suspicions and brought it to Fury who's attempted assassination only led to Steve becoming his next target.

Frigga mentioned that their children were lost to herself and her husband, beyond their reach, but now so is _Asgard;_ they haven't gotten word from Lady Sif Vridottier (the unofficial diplomat between Asgard and Earth) in months. Dr. Jane Foster has said that things have been quiet on her end as well; Asgard has simply vanished. Of all the luck—Peter managed to kidnap not only homeless men with a dangerous weapon, but the lost _princes of Asgard._

Well.

Alright.

All of this information crosses across his mind in under four seconds. He and Tony share a glance as Bruce snaps his jaw shut with surprise. Silence swallows them for a second.

"Um," Bruce swallows audibly, "right."

Ter— _Thor's_ eyes narrow slightly and a hitched breath escapes him, "Do you not believe me?"

"What? No. I do." Bruce sounds surprised, and he's quiet a moment, "How about you sit down?" He suggests.

Thor doesn't shift.

Bruce's releases an audible breath and Peter's gaze flickers to the scientist for a second before he takes a step towards the siblings—hard to think of it like this, when one of them is a snake-- and though Thor's gaze flicks to him, he doesn't coil further.

Peter, gaining confidence, shifts forward again. Tony's breath hitches slightly next to him, but none of them make any move to stop the teen. When Peter's about three feet from Thor and the snake, he comes to a halt. "Hey, Mr. Thor," he greets, "I don't know if you remember, but I found you, we're friends...sort of."

Thor doesn't have any spark of recognition.

The snake, however, lifts his head in Peter's direction and it glances back towards Thor, making a slight clicking noise. Thor's expression furrows and he glances at Peter again as if seeing him in a new light and then stares at Loki. The animal and the Asgardian appear to have simply mastered telepathy because the snake's eyes narrow and Thor's expression grows frustrated the longer the stare lasts.

Peter waits patiently for about a minute, "I promise we're not going to do anything. You're safe here, promise; will you sit down?" He coaxes. Thor lifts his gaze to the teen and glances warily towards the hospital bed before, amazingly, he begins to move towards it in a slight stagger, but doesn't lose hold on the animal. Peter watches them with concern.

Thor all but collapses onto the mattress, drags himself into a sitting position then releases Loki. The snake slithers into the covers next to his sibling, vanishing from his view and Bucky tries to swallow a wave of disgust at the sight, but Thor isn't looking at him. He's looking at Tony.

"How long are we to remain here?" His tone sounds wary.

Tony glances at Bruce who tugs the sleeves of his lab coat over his hands, "...It's hard to say," Bruce admits, "it could be a few more days or up to a week."

Thor nods, he looks calmer, but Bucky can still hear a slight hitch in his breath, and every so often he glances towards the spot Loki vanished to as if checking to make sure that the snake is still present. He hesitates for a second, then asks: "This is Earth, yes?"

"Yep." Peter confirms.

"How long…" Thor bites at his tongue, apparently deciding not to ask that question and switches: "Can any of you get in contact with Jane Foster? I am unfamiliar with the means of communication here. And, if not her, perhaps Darcy Lewis or Erik Selvig?"

Tony nods slowly, "Yeah, I'll try for Foster." He confirms, "In the meantime, I think you should lay down and not move for a while, you look worse than death." Which is unfortunately not an exaggeration. Thor is still pale, his hands are shaking slightly, and his breathing is labored. The bandages around his face are crooked now and not for the first time Bucky wishes he'd been present when he awoke so he understood what happened exactly.

Instead... _that_ happened.

"Peter, Bucky, come," Tony waves a hand towards them, "Bruce needs to work, and _they_ need some space." Tony moves to the doorway and Bucky's feet shift to follow him, but the multi-billionaire suddenly stops and looks back at Thor, "Is your sibling going to be...that for a while?"

Thor glances at the blankets. How Loki managed to hide among the white covers with his dark green, scarred, and frankly ugly scales is beyond him. "Probably." Thor confirms, looking up at them.

Tony nods, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment. "Right; I'm going to pretend that isn't weird. Peter?"

Bucky looks at Peter as the teenager whips his head up and hurries to scramble after the two of them. As they reach the doorway, Peter turns to wave at the blond not exactly cheerily, but sincerely. "Bye, Mr. Thor, Mr. Loki!"

All that answers him is silence.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Slowly peels body off ground wincing and shoots a pitiful look in the direction of the truck that just ran over me*: a summary of the last month or so for me. I am so sorry that this chapter was late! I had every intention of posting it last week, but things were getting crazy and the chapter was about six pages long and not really connected at all, would have been an interesting read. XD
> 
> You're all amazing! Seriously! The comments and reviews I receive make my day! Thank you so much, I can't express how much it means to me. :)
> 
> I make no promises for when the next chapter will be posted; but I'm going to try and bring it to life as quickly as I can. Again, thank you thank you for your support!
> 
> Chapter edited on October 8th, 2018.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sits up in a billowing cloud of smoke* I liiiiveee! Oh my gosh, I am so sorry this update took so long. Thank you all so much for your interest and reviews! Good heavens you guys spoil me! :)
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you!
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing
> 
> Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors.

 

* * *

 

When they reach the messy medical lab, surprisingly more clean than Tony was expecting, he gyrates. Bucky looks mildly surprised at the gesture, but Tony ignores and walks past him, jabbing a finger into Peter's shoulder several times. "What are you doing here?" His question sounds rhetorical, and his tone furious, but he's not certain why. He's angry with Peter, yes, but he doesn't actually want to yell at him.

Peter flinches back from the touch, his face going white suddenly. "Um-un." He stutters.

"Parker," Tony forces the tone to be more calm and in control than he feels. He's a jumbled mess of confusion and dread slowly building to an explosion of a mighty capacity. "What part of 'quarantine' do you not understand?"

May is going to kill him, and it's not even his fault that Peter did the stupid thing this time. How did she even agree to this? ...Did she agree to this? It doesn't seem likely. She works in the medical field and knows the importance of keeping diseases contained, she wouldn't let Peter just wander around unless he'd been declared bacteria free or was wearing something equivalent to a bomb suit.

How did Peter get here, then?

Did he walk? No, he didn't because Tony remembers catching a quick glimpse of the Spider-Man suit tucked under his sleeve when he was calming Thor down.

Peter flushes, "I-I-I'm not-I was just-" He attempts to explain. His tongue is caught in his throat and doesn't look to be untangling itself anytime soon. Peter can be ebullient and impulsive on his best days. Tony knows he's smart, but sometimes the teenanger's ability to not completely think through his actions startles him.

First things first, then. Tony lifts up a hand to stop his jumbled mess of the English language, "Does your aunt know you're here?"

Peter shakes his head wordlessly, his hands clenching at his sides.

" _Peter."_ Tony groans barely managing to hold back the urge to face palm.

Peter sits up a little taller and lifts his chin in defiance, but says nothing.

Tony forces himself to back up and give Peter breathing room despite his need to check Peter over and make sure he hasn't developed any symptoms that he and his team don't have. Admittedly, they haven't found  _any_ symptoms, but he'd rather be safe than Peter dead.

He chews on his inner lip for a second hands fidgeting at his sides. They need to get Peter back to May or at least contact her before she decides that her nephew is under threat and single handedly rips apart New York looking for him.

"What happened?" Steve questions behind them, and Tony nearly jumps at the sound. Honestly, he had forgotten the super soldier and adjoining assassins were present in the room. He whirls to face the captain and blinks stupidly for a second, attempting to process the question. The order of events as they transpired, that's what he's asking.  _Right._

"Ahhh," Tony glances at Bucky for a second for assistance, who meets his gaze, equally flustered. How do they go about explaining this? All Tony can think of is a few choice cusses he would like to exclaim.

"Where's Bruce?" Natasha asks, her eyes narrowing.

Murdered, obviously. The only reasonable explanation. Tony resists an urge to roll his eyes up to the ceiling and let them hang there. All he would really like to do right now is lay down and not move for several hours as he processes what just happened. He doesn't really have any grand desire to talk about the lost princes of Asgard having finally been found.

Asgard.

Of  _all_ the people Peter could have assisted, it was the princes of  _Asgard_ that he finds.

How the bloody heck are they supposed to get a message to them? Wave up at the sky in aggressive hand gestures and hope that their gatekeeper understands it? Shouldn't Asgard already have sent some army or another to come collect their royalty by this point?

It's been days since Peter located them...but Thor only confirmed their identities a few minutes ago.

Still.

Asgard.

He has no idea how to handle this.

Yelling—like he really wants to do—doesn't seem the best option.

He bites at his tongue until he tastes blood, then manages to catch Bucky's eye. "Can you explain? I'm going to see if I can get Happy to take Peter home, and if he can't I will."

He hears Peter shift behind him in discomfort. "Mr. Stark, that really isn't necessary, I can walk—"

"To Queens?" Clint asks doubtfully from his position next to Natasha, leaning against a broom. His head is tilted slightly, almost challenging Peter to oppose them. Tony quietly exhales in relief that Clint agrees with him. He knows that Peter has the possible germs of whatever-disease (that he's starting to doubt the existence of, honestly), but May is going to strangle him if he doesn't send the teenager home soon.

And if things turn to further violence here, even if it only was biting, Tony doesn't want Peter present or the way of fire for that.

Steve's eyes flicker from Bucky to him then back again twice before he nods slightly, "Yeah, take him upstairs. Buck?" Steve addresses and Bucky nods moving forward, dread clear on his face. Tony is not jealous of his position.

He does not want to discuss Asgard at the moment.

He turns and wiggles a finger towards Peter, "C'mon, Parker," he addresses the teen and strides from the burned medical room towards the hallway. He hears Peter stumble after him, and Bucky's baritone beginning to explain about Loki the snake in the background.

He and Peter reach the elevator in less than a minute. "Where to, Sir?" Jarvis questions.

Oh. Happy. He needs to contact Happy. Tony glances at Peter for a second, "The garage."

"Of course, Sir." Jarvis responds cheerfully.

The doors close and Tony tugs his phone from his pocket, flipping it open. Immediately, notification fill his lock screen annoyingly, but he ignores them all, flipping the phone open after entering a quick four digit code. He scrolls through his contacts until he finds Happy and shoots a quick text off to the driver/asset manager.

Peter plays with the edges of his sleeves, tugging them up and over his fingers then squishing the ends against his palms. His anxiety is obvious, and Tony isn't sure what to do about it. Peter likely needs reassurance, but what he did wasn't acceptable and Tony doesn't want a repeat of it in the future.

This impulsiveness is going to get him killed.

Tony's phone buzzes in his pocket and he tugs it out, flipping the screen open to see the reply from Happy:

' _Peter's at the Tower?'_

Tony flicks his gaze up towards the teen. Unless he's hallucinating with everyone else on his team, then yes.

' _Yes.'_

There's a few seconds as Happy types out a response:

'  _=(. I really hate him sometimes. Did you get clearance about the plague?'_

Oh. That. Right. Maybe having Happy drive would  _not_ be the best idea until they are all cleared. He doesn't want to get Happy sick—which would in turn get Pepper sick and them most of S.I.. Well, looks like Tony's taking a trip to Queens. Joy.

' _No. I didn't. Don't bother with it, I'll take him.'_

He backtracks and finds Steve's number: ' _I'm taking Peter to Queens. Be back in a few hours.'_

Happy nor Steve get a chance to respond as the elevator comes to a halt and Tony pockets the phone to step into the garage. It's mostly just a mess of cars he's collected, repairing and improving, and then a few vehicles from his other team members. Steve is partial to motorcycles and at least three last time he checked stationed here, while Clint and Natasha prefer less conspicuous vehicles. Bucky doesn't own a car and Sam's is some sort of brightly colored Sonata that's admittedly ugly, but he's not certain anyone has the heart to tell him.

Tony glances at the teenager walking beside him, looking at the large gathering of vehicles with surprise and awe. "Happy can't make it," Tony says, cutting through the silence. "I'm driving."

Peter nods, but he's fairly certain he saw a infinitesimal slump in his shoulders.

Is he that bad of company?

Tony herds the teenager towards one of his less flashy cars that he's fairly certain has a full tank of gasoline and turns to walk across the room and dig the keys from off a messy board of hooks stapled to the wall, stuffed with keys. They need to organize this better, but often the only transportation any of them take is through the Quinjet, so none of them care. Tony finally locates the key and tugs it off of the hook with careful precision to not pull off all the others and turns to walk towards back towards the car.

Peter is still standing next to it, his stance and expression one looking for an escape.

Tony buries a slight feeling of hurt and frustration and lightly taps him on the shoulder, "It's not going to bite you, you can get in." He instructs.

Peter lifts his gaze up to him, "Oh. I thought it was locked."

Tony huffs and leaves Peter to walk across the car and pull open the driver's seat, "It's not. We never lock them."

Avengers Tower has been attacked to many times for them to bother anymore. A quick getaway and promise of survival well over shadows any need to stop thieves. He has his doubts anyone would  _get_ far with Jarvis watching anyway. And besides that, Avengers Tower is rarely empty. The bottom half of the floors are dedicated to S.I. because Stark Tower was supposed to be an office building in the first place, but the upper floors became living space after Malekith.

Malekith and Asgard.

They have Asgard's princes upstairs.

This is just great. Swell. Amazing. Fantastic.

Peter climbs into the passenger's seat and slams the door shut with an almost careful amount of force then tugs the seat belt on. Tony follows his example and does the same, then shoves the keys into the ignition and twists them. The engine roars to life with a humming glee, as if having finally awakened after a long rest to the promise of caffeine.

Tony backs out into the cleared path dedicated to driving that no stray parts or parking is allowed in and turns the car to start driving for the exit. Jarvis will take care of the garage, so he just focuses on going forward through the artificially lighted space. There aren't any windows on this floor mostly because Tony blowing something up on accident is more common than any of them care to admit.

Tony exits the Tower and drives into the busy street, blending into the traffic with ease. It's a little after seven P.M., so dinner/work rush hour is almost over.

"Why don't you lock them?" Peter asks, his voice curious.

Tony glances at him for a second, seeing genuine interest on his face rather than just an attempt to fill the silence, then turns his gaze back to the cars in front of him. "It's just easier," Tony shrugs, "when we get attacked." He adds on a moment later.

Peter nods, returning to his cryptic silence.

Tony releases a quiet breath between his teeth and wishes he could talk to Pepper. She's always been better at dealing with teenagers and children than he is. She had younger siblings growing up, as well as two sisters who were married with children. Tony had none of that and his skill with it is messy at best. He is terrible at this mentor-thing.

Why didn't Peter choose someone sensible like  _Steve?_ Steve is just as emotionally messy as he is, but at least he can actually _talk_  to people about their problems. Tony feels like he's just been asked to give a speech on a subject he knows nothing about.

Nevertheless, it wasn't exactly Peter's fault that it winded up like this. Mr. Toomes didn't try to take Steve's head, it was Tony's. Steve didn't find Peter's battered and sensory deprived form in the windowless, door-less room he'd been trapped in for a week, it was Tony.

He doesn't want to be Howard, and he's terrified that he will be.

He isn't the kid's uncle, his father, or even his guardian. He's some sort of awkward teacher-friend if it can be classified as that.

"Kid," Tony says, drawing Peter's attention from where he's staring at the dashboard with more interest than is healthy, "listen. When we tell you to do something, we're not actually asking for a rebellious defiance. A team can't rely on a member like that. We don't know what's in Ter— _Thor'_ s blood and you could have spread it to someone."

He keeps his tone patient, but nonetheless Peter scowls slightly. "I know."

Tony flicks the blinker on and pulls a left, " _Do you?"_ He challenges.

Peter nods, "I was careful. I kept the suit on and I swung to the Tower. I didn't touch anything but the webs."

"Was it that important to see them? I could have just texted you an update." Tony presses.

Peter clenches his fingernails into his sleeves and mumbles something under his breath. Tony quietly releases a breath and wishes for the Iron Man suit, which can pick up small sounds and interpret them without Tony having to ask what was said six hundred times in a row. Alas.

"What was that?" Tony asks.

Peter repeats it, less confident, but still inaudible.

"Kid." Tony presses.

"It's nothing." Peter doesn't seem to have his heart set in agreement with his statement. His lips press together assuring Tony that unless he drags it from Peter with extensive effort, it isn't going to come out. Tony bites at his tongue again.

Errgh, he is not good at heart-to-heart. He's more than happy to listen, he just wishes that offering feedback wasn't required.

"It doesn't sound like it." He notes.

Peter frowns, "Just—drop it, please? I don't want to talk about it."

This doesn't set right with him for some reason. If it had been Pepper, Rhodey or someone else from the team, Tony would have let it settle there without to much of an issue because he knows that they'll bring it up again when they're ready. Peter is a different story. The teen is set in bottling everything inside until it explodes out with mighty force. It's not very effective, or healthy.

"Kid—" Tony starts, but stops as Peter reaches up and gives his hair a tug. It's something he only does when reaching the peak of anxiety, but the gesture reminds him abruptly of Clint, who is prone to the same thing.

Tony's lips thin.

Peter groans and lets his head fall into his hands and Tony halts abruptly, surprised at the reaction. Peter doesn't look up at him. "I'm sorry. This is stupid. I swear I'm just stressed and saying stupid things. May's been freaking out and when she freaks out than I freak out and...I needed out or I was going to explode. I want to help Ter—Thor and Loki, but I don't know how."

Neither does he.

Tony eyes him, "When was the last time you slept properly?"

Peter looks up at him, his expression startled. "Slept?" He repeats.

Tony knows he's just processing the sentence, but nonetheless sees an opportunity to leap from the uncomfortable seriousness and takes it. "Yes, sleep. You know, when you lay down on and close your eyes slipping into a trance like state and communicate with your inner psyche?"

Peter smiles lightly and Tony allows himself to relax a marginal amount. Getting someone to laugh has always been easier than actually comforting them. "It's been a few days." Peter admits.

Tony nods. "Great. When we get you back home and May is done yelling, you're going to take a nap. I'll call your aunt about any updates we get on Thor and Loki."

Peter nods, something akin to relief slipping into his posture. "Thanks."

Tony quickly does a run through of the conversation in his mind again and barely slams down on the breaks in enough time as the light flicks red suddenly. Was it even  _yellow?_  Peter lurches forward and nearly smacks his head against the dashboard at the abruptness. He's driving. He needs to be more focused.

Tony glances at him and gives a tight smile, "Yeah, don't learn how to drive from me." He is one-hundred percent self taught and it isn't something he takes great pride in. His driving has been labeled by Natasha and Sam as "akin to driving with the Grim Reaper". Didn't make his day, admittedly, but it's funny now.

Peter laughs, "May says the same thing. I swear she breaks more laws than she keeps."

Tony's eyebrows lift with interest, "Does she now?"

"Yeah." Peter agrees, his tone growing more animated, "There was this one time with the—hey, who's the worst driver on the team?"

Tony pauses. Um. Hard to say, they aren't all angels of the law. Sam is probably the best—but the worst, if not him… "Probably Bucky." Tony admits, "Then I'd wager Clint. Both drive like their on a high speed chase scene. I think they have a bet on who can collect more tickets total. So far the record is thirty."

Peter gawks. " _Thirty?"_

"Just since they joined the team, yeah," Tony agrees, "I can't remember exactly, I think it's higher though."

How any of them haven't died from a car crash yet is beyond him. Tony slams on the gas pedal as the light turns green then pulls a hard left and pointedly looks away from Peter, "How's school?"

Peter makes a face from the corner of his eye, "Fine."

"'Fine'-fine or  _fine-_ fine?" Tony questions.

"It's school." Peter says. "There's not much else to be said. I'm going to have to do so much make-up work from all of this."

Tony grimaces, "Yeah. That'll be lots of fun."

Peter shakes his head, "No, it will not be. I don't want to talk about school. Can we talk about something else, please?"

"Yep." Tony agrees popping the "P". "What do you want to talk about?"

Peter perks up, "Have you seen any of the trailers for Solo?"

000o000

Bruce hasn't ever been bitten by a snake before today, and though he knew to some degree that it wasn't a pleasant experience, he had no idea how excruciatingly  _painful_ it is. Even with Hulk's blood thrumming inside of his skin, the wound is still pulsing like he got stabbed with a machete, not two small teeth.

The bite was, however, thankfully simply a dry-bite, but it still aches.

His right hand can't manage holding a pencil, or barely anything at all from how much it stings. He wrapped it with gauze in an attempt to stop swelling, but the fabric is just itchy and uncomfortable against his skin.

Bruce flips through the pages of notes he's taken the last few days, working through Thor's condition as well as Loki's and quickly skims the page detailing the bloodstream oddity. Neither he, nor Tony could find a source for this, but now after knowing where they're from, Bruce is just wondering if it's simply Asgardian blood.

Asgard.

Thor and Loki, here, now.

Director Fury promised to keep a weather eye out for the two siblings to King Odin, but they didn't have much luck with finding anything. Admittedly, Bruce still isn't sure how they  _got_ here in the first place. Have they been on Earth this whole time and just came out in public finally? There's no way they could have been on another planet because there wasn't any evidence of a ship crashing, nor the Bifrost when Tony looked it over after hacking into the traffic cameras.

Where the two came from is as much of a mystery as to what happened to them.

The blood cells are slower at regenerating than a normal humans would be and don't seem to pump through the bloodstream as quickly. They wouldn't need as much oxygen as them, but twenty-twenty three minutes would be a maximum. The cellular makeup of the two of them doesn't match, however, Thor's is buoyant, but Loki's seems strangely...cold. He can't make sense of much of what he's reading, but from what he can gather: they can survive without oxygen for long periods of time, they are both have advanced healing to match Steve's, if not surpass it, and both their blood is infused with some sort of...energy he can't quite place. Loki's has more of it than Thor's does, however.

Bruce sets the clipboard down on the table with his left hand and barely catches a wince as it gently grazes his right. He's guessing he's going to be using his non-dominant hand for awhile. If only he was left handed, like Clint, or ambidextrous, like Natasha then this would be exceedingly less difficult.

He looks up at the hospital bed in the center of the room, and is slightly surprised to see Loki sitting up, in his human form. He's cross legged on the end of the bed, and the tip of his knee is touching Thor's ankle as his gaze squints, attempting to read a long documented page of nonsense on the far wall. It's something that Clint put together a year and a half ago when he kept getting bored in the medical room. He took strips from newspapers and strung them together to create a large page of tiny text that makes little sense to understand and a great deal of effort to read.

It's more entertaining than staring at white paint, though.

He doesn't know when Loki changed, he didn't even  _see_ it from where he was focused on the papers. Thor's eye is closed and his breathing is rhythmic, but not deep enough to indicate sleep. Bruce frowns and leans back against the desk from the stool he's perched on.

"To your knowledge," Bruce starts, receiving a slight jolt from both of them, "are either of you sick?"

Thor's eye opens and he and Loki share a glance, before Loki murmurs a few words in a language he doesn't recognize. His voice is different than Bruce was expecting, it's deep, but not like Thor's and it's softer. Bruce isn't as well versed in languages as Natasha or Clint, but he can pick out about twenty from each other and this isn't one he can place.

It's likely their native tongue.

Bruce can't come up with any other explanation, and it makes sense. Asgard is another  _planet,_ why would they not have their own tongues there? Earth has over six thousand languages, why should Asgard be limited to only English? Now that he's thinking on it, he does vaguely remember King Odin speaking to a few soldiers in the dialect.

Thor murmurs an answer in return to Loki's question, then asks something.

Loki's face twitches, but he answers in turn and both turn to look at him. Both of their gazes make him feel strangely uncomfortable, but he does his best to shove it to the side. Hulk rumbles quietly in the back of his mind, warning of the snake again.

"No, we are not with anything but a fever." Thor answers at last, in English; now Bruce can see the accent of their tongue in his voice, as well as the odd structuring of his sentences.

"Okay," Bruce agrees, nodding his head. No plague, just a misconception about blood. That's great. Good. Excellent. Bruce's shoulders lower in relief and the knot of anxiety building in his chest relaxes a minuscule amount.

"Might...might I inquire as to why?" Loki questions.

Bruce blinks at him in surprise for a second.

They don't know about the guessed-plague. He doesn't have a clue how much the two understand what is going on around them. Judging by their expressions, not much. Bruce inclines his head to the question, "Of course. We...we've never seen Asgardian blood before—" Loki's fingers tighten "—and we thought it was some sort of sickness. We've met with your people before, but-"

"You have?" Thor interrupts, then looks mildly horrified with himself.

Bruce lifts a hand to reassure him it's fine. He has no idea what happened to them, but judging from the scars their continuous paranoia and over correction of simple actions, he's not guessing anything pleasant. It disgusts him that someone would do something like this to people until they snapped like this.

"Yeah," Bruce answers, he's not sure how much information he can divulge or how much they're prepared for. "They helped us with a battle when things got out of hand."

"Our father assisted you?" Loki questions, his eyebrows furrowing with what Bruce is guessing is confusion.

"Yes." Bruce answers, "It was against a guy named Malekith, you heard of him?" King Odin mentioned him being some great enemy to Asgard, it's probably safe to bet that as the princes of their Realm, Thor and Loki have heard of him to.

The two share a look. "Only in stories." Thor admits, "He died over two thousand years ago."

"Yeah, no, not really." Bruce says. Malekith's destructive force as he whipped through England wasn't a story, it was real and ugly. Without Asgard's assistance, Bruce doesn't know if he would still be alive right now. Or any of the other Avengers. "They mentioned you were missing—How  _did_  you two get to Earth?" He asks.

As quickly as it came, the spark of ease is destroyed. Loki tenses and Thor's lips thin. Bruce mentally kicks himself. He can't tell what subjects can be spoken on and the ones that need to be avoided. He needs to gain their trust so they can help them until Asgard sends someone. Hopefully, it will be soon, given their gatekeepers all seeing abilities.

Admittedly, he's looking forward to that and it makes him squirm. He has no idea how to help either one of these men and Asgard should. He wants to help them as best he can, but he isn't sure how.

"I creat—we walked between Realms." Loki answers, his tone careful. His lips thin with discomfort before he blows out a breath and squeezes his eyes shut.

' _Between Realms'._

' _I created'_

Loki pulled them between worlds?

_How?_

Even Asgard needs the Bifrost to accomplish this task and Jane Foster's efforts from Earth have not been successful to Bruce's understanding. Foster. Thor wanted them to call Foster. Right. It's strange to bend his mind around the fact that  _this_ Thor is the one that Foster became the leading scientist in astrophysics for. They seem like two entirely different people.

"Oh." Bruce breathes, surprise clear in his tone. "I didn't realize that was possible."

Neither answers.

Awkward silence stretches between them for nearly a minute before Bruce notices Loki's posture slumping. It wouldn't be perceptible if Bruce wasn't looking at both of them so intensely. He clears his throat, "Loki, you should rest. Now that we know neither one of you is contagious, we can move you back into a single room, but for the moment—"

"No." Loki's voice is quiet, but there's a terrified note attached to it. "Please don't make me leave."

Bruce pauses, flabbergasted. Anxiety is clear on both siblings and Bruce relents. "Fine, let me go get someone to help me move Thor and we can do the transfer right now. Don't move." He commands and rises from the stool to exit the room, glancing back at them as he does.

His hand pulses with pain at the sudden movement, and Bruce thins his lips.

Probably two people, then.

He's not going to be very useful like this beyond directing.

He quickly treks the space between Thor's room and the destroyed medical lab, spotting Natasha, Clint, Steve and Bucky talking quietly. Tony and Peter are absent. He stands in the doorway for a second before all four look up at him. Their sudden attention is stifling and words catch in this throat and refuse to be released.

He's not one for being the center of attention and Thor and Loki's constant stares have not been welcomed.

He forces out a breath. "Hey, I need two people to help me move them."

He doesn't bother explaining them, there isn't a point, and Steve and Clint step forward. Bruce nods his thanks and turns to exit the room.

"Is your hand okay?" Natasha calls.

Pulsing, aching and twisting with pain in a way he's never felt before, even when transforming into the Hulk, but yeah, fine. "It stings a little." Bruce answers, glad she can't see his expression. He doesn't want to elaborate further and continues to walk forward, Steve and Clint stepping into pace with him a moment later.

"Why are we moving them?" Clint asks, wringing his hands in front of his stomach. It's a gesture of confusion and not one he makes often. Bruce doesn't really want to divulge on the separation anxiety issue, it seems strangely private.

Bruce blows out a soft raspberry, "There isn't a plague and it's easier to watch both of them when they're together."

"Ah." Clint voices.

Steve hums in agreement.

When they get onto the hall with Thor's room, Steve stops suddenly, his expression furrowed. Bruce turns to look at him, confused and opens his mouth to ask what he's doing, but stills. One of the additions of Hulk is an increased sense of smell and hearing, it isn't something he often notices anymore, but suddenly it's bright in contrast to everything else.

He can hear the low murmur of Thor and Loki's voices speaking in a soft English.

"— _hunting us._ I took the scepter, Thor, you  _know_ what's in that." Loki's says, voice is sharp and breathless. The scepter. The glowing spear? Is that what he means? What  _is_ it anyway?

"Yes, but-Loki you need to rest. We can't leave now." Thor insists.

"We don't have time for sleeping," Loki hisses, "we're going to get all of them killed if we stay here."

"What are you doing?" Clint's tone is soft, but Bruce and Steve lift up a hand to silence him.

"You don't even know if you actually pulled them in with us." Thor demurs, "Loki,  _please,_ you cannot go another step right now and neither can I. My eye is still bleeding, I don't think the infection was drained out completely. You—"

" _Shh."_

"What?"

" _Shh._ Someone's in the hall."

Bruce blanches at having been caught, and is startled on what to do next. Eavesdropping is not something he regularly indulges on and his stomach twists at the realization of  _what_  he was doing. What are they  _talking_ about? Bruce mentally replays the conversation in his head. Hunting. Something is hunting them.  _What?_

The difference between how they speak to each other and how they speak to everyone else just shows how their unease with them vastly. When they talked to Bruce, Loki stumbled over his words, was careful with his tone and Thor hardly said anything that wasn't a brisk question. What happened between to them?

Who's hunting them?

Does Asgard know about this?

Where  _is_ Asgard?

Bruce forces himself to continue walking forwards, placing more weight into his feet so their arrival is fairly obvious. They've already been caught, there's no need to pretend otherwise. Steve and Clint follow after Bruce with equal hesitation before they arrive to the entrance of the room.

Loki is twisted around to look at them, but Bruce notes that as far as he can tell, neither shifted even the slightest bit from where they were positioned beforehand. Bruce told them not to move and meant " _don't leave the room."_

Bruce shoves the observation to the side as best as he's able and gives the most plastered smile he can manage, striding into the room. Sincerity isn't something he's certain he can muster at the moment. Loki's eyes narrow slightly as Steve and Clint follow, but he makes no vocal noise. Thor merely frowns slightly.

"Loki, Thor," Bruce address and turns to Clint and Steve, "this is Clint Barton and Steve Rogers."

Both nod when addressed, and Steve gives a slight wave.

"We can manage without their aid," Loki says, stubbornly. Bruce withholds a pointed comment about how exhausted they both are and instead nods with disbelief.

"Right." He agrees.

Loki throws his feet over the edge with clear annoyance and rises to his feet, he manages to hold his balance for about two seconds before he tips forward. Steve moves across the room to fast for Bruce to really track with his gaze and catches Loki before he can smack his face against the ground.

Loki's entire body tenses at the physical contact, but he keeps his lips thinned and says nothing, embarrassed, if Bruce were to guess.

Bruce looks at Clint who turns to him before Bruce tilts his head towards Thor slightly. Clint moves across the room and smiles brightly at Thor with far more sincerity than Bruce can bother with. "Good afternoon!" He says cheerfully. Thor stares at him as if he's grown a second head. Clint doesn't back down. "Are you ready?"

Thor does not look prepared, but nonetheless sits up completely and swings his legs over the side of the bed. Sometime soon Bruce needs to force them into hospital scrubs or at least find them both a change of clothes. He'll have to talk to Tony about that latter, though, but he's not entirely certain where the multi-billionaire went.

As Clint moves to take Thor's arm and swing it across his shoulders, Loki twitches slightly from his position of being aided by Steve. Bruce quietly exhales in gratitude that in the midst of his panic attack earlier, Thor had ripped the medical equipment out and Bruce doesn't have to do it now. Speaking of which, there was an IV, his arm should be bleeding.

Bruce flicks his gaze to the Asgardian's right arm and spots a thin trail of it leaking across his forearm. He purses his lips together and decides not to comment before leading the two groups out of the room, towards the original space Thor and Loki were placed.

When the siblings are settled, re-hooked to IVs, Thor's eye-bandage re-wrapped, and Loki's fingers reset, he, Clint and Steve exit the room. Bruce flicks the main overhead light off and closes the door with a soft click. He rubs at his eyes several times and represses a groan of frustration.

He is exhausted, a headache is thrumming in the back of his mind and he's fairly certain he hasn't eaten anything since breakfast. He attempts a step forward, but stumbles and Clint's arm wraps around his shoulder, "Hey, you okay?" He questions.

Bruce waves a hand, "Tired." He admits.

"There's nothing else we can do for them, right?" Steve says, then appends: "Right now, anyway."

"Yeah." Bruce agrees, "I can't remember if I told you that the 'plague' is just their blood. It's different than ours is." Bruce says, and forces himself to take several more steps forward, "Where's Tony?"

"He took Peter home." Clint supplies, "I'll text him and let him know about the plague not being a plague. You should go get some rest."

Bruce hums in disagreement. "Food. Then rest." He corrects. "Will one of you guys stay behind and watch them? I don't feel comfortable leaving them by themselves. I think…" He pauses and bites at his tongue for a second. Loki mentioned hunting. "Steve, you heard them about the hunting thing."

"The what now?" Clint demands, and Bruce looks to him. His eyebrows are meeting in his confusion and his blue eyes are flickering back and forth between them.

Bruce waves a tired hand, "They were talking about it. It's why we stopped in the hall. Loki thinks something is hunting them."

"Oh." Clint breathes, " _What?"_

"We don't know." Steve answers, "He didn't say."

Bruce wishes he had. He's admittedly getting a little flustered with all the questions and no answers thing. Clint gives his shoulder a pat, "Alright. Tasha and I will stay behind and watch them. The rest of you go get some food and sleep."

Bruce complies happily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About the language thing: it's one of my headcanons that Asgard is linguistic. They have their own set of languages (about ten) and English is common tongue among the cities. Asgardians structure their sentences differently than modern English does, but I don't think its because they only use Shakespeare lingo. Grammar gets weird when it goes between languages. All-Speak is great and all, but not something I'm super fond of because it sort of feels like cheating, ;D. Anyway, just wanted to explain that.
> 
> I have no idea when the next update will be, but hopefully soon! :) Thank you all so much for your support, I am beyond words with my gratitude!


	6. Chapter 6

"Dude, are you okay? You look like you got ran over by a truck." Ned's voice is laced with concern, but there's also a slight impressed note thrown in as well. Impressed with how wiped out and dead he looks. Yeah, well, he  _feels_ like he got ran over by a truck. A large one, carrying logs and a great deal of water. It was heavy, and it hurt.

He grimaces despite himself and tugs the edges of his jacket sleeves over his palms.

Peter flicks his gaze up and shrugs slightly, stabbing his fork into the sandwich present on his plate then continues the circles that the bread has been spinning for minutes on end now. Round and round it goes.

Lunch break has finally hit and though Peter missed breakfast because he accidentally slept in a little from attempting to finish the large pile of homework, he's not hungry. His stomach feels oddly disorienting and twisted, like he has a sponge shoved in it taking away hunger pangs but leaving him feeling awkwardly stuffed.

He hates homework.

He is never going to get it done and fail all his classes because of it.

"Long week." Peter admits at last.

Long week is  _beyond_ and understatement. He  _accidentally_ found and kidnapped the missing princes of Asgard, and now, a week to the day since that, he's being stuffed back into school and having to catch up on more homework than he honestly cares to think about. If he was given a choice, Peter probably would have just chosen to keep going to school because he  _hates_ make-up work, but he wasn't. Quarantine sucks.

Ned's eyes widen with understanding, and his lips part to state something, but Peter pointedly turns his head towards MJ who's sitting on Ned's left, face stuffed into a book. She confronted him with her suspicion of his alter-ego about a month ago now, and it's relieving to not have to awkwardly have a conversation about Spider-Man, but...not at the same time. He's never worried about her telling anyone, and she's given her full support for his actions.

The one thing that she  _was_ firm about, though, was that she thinks it's a stupid idea to talk about Spider-Man at school. Peter and Ned put their best effort into avoiding the subject since then and it's helped ease Peter's anxiety about his identity being overheard. Ned is fully capable of keeping a secret, but sometimes he gets over excited and things come blurting out.

MJ, is not, however, aware of the whole Peter-and-Ned-kidnapped-and/or-found-the-lost-princes-of-Asgard thing. Not on purpose, it's just in the midst of everything that was happening, Peter just...forgot. He would have texted her, but MJ rarely has her phone on so he didn't see a point. He has plans to tell her, just  _not_ now, and it would be nice if Ned didn't go blurting it out to anyone within earshot.

Huh. Yeah, that would go over well in a really sarcastic way: " _What was that Ned?" "Oh—sorry Mr. Elke, yeah, Peter's also Spider-Man and works with the Avengers on a freelance basis." "Wow, really? Ain't that neat! I'm going to tweet that!"_

MJ chooses this moment to look up, her brown hair framing her face and lips thinned. She squints at him, as if seeing him for the first time then glances at Ned, then back to him. Peter hates it when she does her...thing, her stare-into-your-soul-and-find-all-your-deepest-secrets thing. Honestly. He prefers to keep as many layers to cover it as he can.

"When was the last time you slept?" MJ's voice is monotone, but he can pick out the edges of concern laced within it. Ah...what is today? Tuesday? Yeah, that sounds about right. So, maybe Sunday. Peter's silence is enough of an answer for MJ and she raises a cryptic eyebrow. "I see." Her expression is level with her obvious disapproval.

Peter makes a sheepish face and rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly with discomfort. The cafeteria is loud and suddenly Peter is highly aware of that fact. People are talking and there's the weird smell from the kitchens that is supposed to be a lunch offering, but could easily mimic the smell of Uranus.

"Um." He stutters, "I just...you know—been busy with the Stark internship and such."

Sort of.

MJ's eyebrow arches further up on her face. She closes her book and rests it on the table, giving them both her full attention. Which is swell. Yay. Hoorah. She stares between the two of them, then tilts her head slightly. "Does this have something to do with Avengers Tower being on unofficial lockdown the last few days?"

What?

How does she know about that?

Peter blanches with surprise and shares a glance with Ned. "How do you know about that?" Ned demands.

MJ flicks a finger out towards another table, and Peter quickly whirls with dread in his stomach to stare back at it. The table has several cheerleaders and sportsy people. He doesn't know the names of all of them, but there's a few that he does recognize. Liz, Flash, a girl named Sarah, Flash's best friend Eddie, and Harry Osborn.

Peter nearly doubletakes at the sight of the redhead at the table to make sure he's not hallucinating this.  _The_ Harry Osborn, not some impersonator, but the actual human being. Harry's the only son of Norman and his late wife, Emily, who died during his birth. Not much is known about Harry, his father keeps him well out of the paparazzis way and the only pictures of him are from public events. Still, Peter knows  _of_ him because he follows his father's research. He was also the guide in the tour where Peter got bit by the spider. He seemed a little shy, but nice enough.

What the heck is he doing at Midtown?

And, to make matters worse, Peter's pretty sure MJ's finger is pointing at him.

Sure enough, a second later she adds, "Harry."

Ned's expression raises with disbelief. "Harry. As in  _Harry Osborn?"_

She must be kidding. MJ makes an affirmative noise in her throat. "Yep."

Peter runs a hand through his hair and turns back to her, "What is he doing here?"

MJ's eyebrows lower with slight confusion before they clear, "Ah. Right, you were on sick leave the last few days. He transferred here last Wednesday."

_Wednesday!?_

MJ shrugs, "Anyway, he and I talk sometimes. He's cool. Anyway, his dad keeps tabs on SI, they're competitive companies—you know, the whole stalking the other out till they collapse thing. Oscorp hasn't made much headway 'cause Miss Potts' is in charge and the world is ending the day someone beats that woman in court."

Very true.

Pepper is terrifying when she wants to be.

Like, if she was voted president, the U.S. would get their butt handed to them easily and whip themselves into shape while pleading for mercy. He's not even joking, he's seen her  _do_ things when the Avengers are being idiots. Okay, one time, but still.

Peter's mind re-routes what they were talking about, carefully parses it, then comes to a halt. "Oscorp's been  _stalking_ them?"

MJ's lips thin and she gives a nod. "Harry didn't sound super happy about it."

But if they've been  _watching,_ do they  _know?_

Asgard has been searching for their princes for years, anyone who holds them has the planet in their mercy. You could potentially rule Asgard by wielding the two and the thought is more terrifying when Peter finally puts it into words. No one is supposed to know what he found. What about the plague—do they know about that, too?

"Shouldn't that be illegal?" Ned queries.

MJ shrugs, "Probably. Hasn't really stopped anyone before, though."

Okay, fair, but still,  _that doesn't make it right._ Peter makes a noise in the back of his throat, but he's not quite certain what it means and MJ releases a quiet breath at it. Peter wraps his arms around his stomach and stares at MJ urgently.

"Did he say anything else?" He asks.

He's not certain if he wants an answer.

MJ shakes her head, "No, we don't know each other well enough." Her gaze rests on the redhead once more, Peter and Ned following her gaze. MJ's lips curve down slightly. Flash says something that Peter can't make out among the roar of the students and the table laughs at it, but Harry's looks oddly strained. "He seemed pretty desperate to talk to me." MJ notes, her voice soft, "I think he's lonely."

Yeah. The longer he stares, the more he agrees with her. MJ's always been perceptive, and it's finally something he can see for himself. Sympathy builds in him for the Osborn.

Peter's phone buzzes abruptly, snapping him from the revere and he flicks his gaze down to his pocket, dragging the mobile from within. He turns on the screen and sees that the text is from Mr. Stark. His chest leaps in anticipation at the words:  _You busy later?_

Yes, he is.

School is going to kill him if it gets even a small smidgen of its' way—and, beyond that, he hasn't gone patrolling for a few nights now and he  _needs_ to check up on his city. But  _that_ can wait, Mr. Stark can't. He buries this and replies with:  _Nope. What time?_

000o000

School passes fairly quickly. Peter's not certain if it's his strong desire to  _not_ do any homework that is making the passage of time warp, or something else. Probably the former. He's not the first person out of the school when the bell rings, briefly engaging in conversation with his English teacher a paper's extension date and when he exits the school, it's not exactly empty, but the bulk of the crowd waiting for rides is missing.

Mr. Stark said that he'd send someone to come and get him—he wasn't specific on  _who,_ but Peter's guessing Happy—and they'd be here little after three thirty. He doesn't see the familiar car when he walks to the outer edge of the sidewalk and flicks a glance down at his phone. It's not quite on the half hour mark yet, so he's still got a few minutes to kill. MJ and Ned already left for home, MJ has a family thing that she needs to take care of and Ned has to go pick up his sister from ballet.

After a few more minutes have passed, Peter sits on the curb and tugs out his math assignment beginning to work through the problems when he hears footsteps. He flicks his gaze up in surprise and hope, but it isn't Happy. Or Mr. Stark. It's a tallish man with dark red hair in a black two piece suit with sunglasses on his face. His spider sense, however, vaguely tingles in the back of his neck, wary, but not outright blaring as it's been prone to the last few days.

The man stands still for a second, staring at him before tugging off his sunglasses. "You're Peter Parker, right?" His voice is deep, but surprisingly familiar. It takes Peter a second to place him and when he does, his stomach leaps into his throat. After meeting Tony Stark, Director Coulson, the  _Avengers_ and a handful of other famous people, Peter's pretty sure that he should be used to it by now. He's not. Nope.

His eyebrows shoot to his hairline and he slams the math textbook shut on his lap with surprise, "Ah, yeah," he agrees quickly shoving his distorted messy school supplies into his backpack and rising to his feet awkwardly shooting his hand out for a shake.

Norman Osborn takes it with ease and smiles. It feels strangely twisted and insincere. His spider sense hums louder at the contact and Peter attempts to stuff it to the side. It's been ringing endlessly for days now and he's not certain how to  _shut it up._ He wishes it would quiet. It's hard to think with it being so paranoid.

Peter pulls his hand back warily. "I'm sorry, Sir, but can I ask how you knew that?"

Mr. Osborn laughs slightly, the stupid fake adult laugh that old people do when they're trying to gain your trust but don't know how to go about it quite right. Peter hates the laugh. Mr. Toomes would do that stupid laugh when Peter finally begged to be let out of the room and—

"Well, who wouldn't, Mr. Parker?" Mr. Osborn says cheerfully, yet his eyes lack the mirth. "You're a very promising child."

He's not a child.

He's  _sixteen._

Peter holds his tongue and is suddenly inclined to give into his spider senses dislike for the man. Mr. Osborn clears his throat and straights his pristine tie, "Yes, indeed. I have been meaning to contact you—you'll have to forgive my tardiness I've been...ah, busy."

Yeah. Peter imagines so. How the heck does he know who he is? Peter isn't exactly a public figure. Mr. Stark does his best to keep their interactions as much of a secret as they can to  _avoid_ this type of attention. They don't need anyone  _else_ making the dots between Peter and Spider-Man like Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. did.

Peter makes a slight noise, "No worries, Mr. Osborn." He assures. Does he  _call_ him Mr. Osborn? What—!? That is such a stupid question. What  _else_ is he supposed to call him,  _be calm,_ alright?

Mr. Osborn leans back, pleased, "Yes, good. Ah, it occurs to me that I don't mean to startle you. I've seen Stark's interest in you and was curious as to what would could possibly draw his attention about a teenager so I did a little digging. I must say, I'm impressed; your academic skills are well above your peers."

Okay.

That's great.

Peter has never wished for Happy to arrive faster. He doesn't know what it  _is_ about this man that makes him so uncomfortable.

"I've been meaning to contact you to offer a job at Oscorp."

Peter blinks with surprise, reeling back slightly.  _What?_

Oscorp.  _Oscorp._

This is beyond insane—bordering well into the dreaming category.

As Peter struggles to wrap his mind around this, Harry arrives looking mildly disheveled and a backpack swung over his shoulders. His green eyes flick back and forth between the two of them for a second before he turns to his father. "Sorry I'm late, Dad. The principal wanted to discuss something with me."

"I hope it's not about your grades again Harry; I won't put you into another private school to see your academic levels slipping  _again._ Midtown was supposed to be a fresh start, son." Mr. Osborn says sharply.

"It  _is."_ Harry insists, sounding strangely desperate. "I promise."

Mr. Osborn hums knowingly and turns back to Peter flipping a card from his pocket and handing it out to him. His spider sense whirls in discomfort, snapping Peter from his shocked state. Mr. Osborn's eyes are alight with something that can only be referred to as "glee". "This is my secretary's contact information, give me a call when you decide to take me up on my offer."

_'When'?_

Despite his earlier surprise, he's really not interested. He has a future at SI—and not just because he knows Mr. Stark, though it does help. Still. SI  _does_ things to help people, Oscorp's main function is GMO, which isn't something that Peter's awfully keen on.

"What?" Harry says in confusion, "What offer?"

Mr. Osborn gives a small sigh and glances at his son, "This is Peter Parker, he's the type of pupil I hope you'll be one day. He's the answer I've been searching for to help with my project."

Harry's lips thin with discomfort and Mr. Osborn all but shoves the card into Peter's hand. The cardstock looks no different than others he's seen, but it's strangely tainted. What is  _up_ with this man? He doesn't understand half of what his spider sense is warning him of (he rarely does), but it's unusual for it to be this picky.

Mr. Osborn smiles in Peter's direction and swings a arm across his son's shoulders, "Come, Harry, the car is waiting. Mr. Parker, it was a pleasure to at last meet you." The two walk off down the sidewalk and Peter flicks the card up to read at the text. What project is he talking about? A pleasure? Yeah, well, he can't say the feeling was mutual.

Happy's familiar car pulls up along the curb at last and he sighs quietly to himself, snapping his jaw shut and stuffing the card hastily into his jacket pocket. He doesn't know why, but he has little desire to speak of the encounter to anyone.

Peter opens the passenger door as the car comes to a halt and slips inside the vehicle.

000o000

Nearly a hour and a half later, Peter steps into the medical room where Thor and Loki are residing. He hasn't seen them since the whole snake-thing nearly two days ago (only two? It feels like  _years,_ but it's barely been what? Thirty hours?), but they don't look much better now then they did then. Thor is a little less pale and dressed in some loose clothing, but the bandages on his face are still present and freshly replaced. Loki's fingers are wrapped thickly with a brownish medical tape and though his hair is cleaner and he too has changed clothing, he doesn't look any less exhausted.

Mr. Stark, behind him, closes the door and shifts to where Dr. Banner is reviewing something on a laptop, asking something about lichtenbergs. Peter ignores them to the best of his ability and rocks on his heels slightly. He and Mr. Stark had briefly been worked with the suit's schematics for a few minutes before Peter asked to see the two and Mr. Stark had agreed, trailing him up here.

Loki tilts his head slightly, staring. Thor gives a tight smile and waves him forward. Peter suddenly, desperately, wishes for the ability to overcome social awkwardness as he swings his backpack off his shoulder onto one of the chairs present in the white room and moves forward.

Peter reaches the space between the two hospital beds, separated by a bedside table and Loki's IV, and turns towards Thor gesturing towards the end of the bed, "Do you mind if I…?"

"No," Thor assures, though his gaze doesn't really agree with his statement.

Peter ignores it and takes the seat, folding his legs in next to his knees in a butterfly position and flicks his gaze between the two siblings, "You're looking better. Can I get you anything?"

Loki carefully shifts onto his side, grimacing lightly as he does so and waves the IV line out of the way looking mildly irritated at it. He tugs some of his hair from his face and shares a look with his sibling that Peter can only interpret as bland confusion.

"No." Loki says attentivly.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"'Kay." Peter agrees, playing with his fingers for a second, gosh he is terrible at this. "Sorry, I don't mean to intrude on...whatever it was you were doing, I just wanted to make sure they hadn't killed you yet."

Thor's eyebrows raise, "You feared they would dispose of us while you were gone?"

_What?_

"Whoa, okay, no," Peter says and lifts up his hands mentally kicking himself. Thor and Loki take anything said to them and parse it to ridiculous lengths, Peter isn't used to it. Agh, what does he  _say_ to pick this back together. "Expression." He blurts out. Not really, but it's the only thing he can think of. It was  _supposed_ to be funny.

Loki and Thor share another glance.

Peter rubs at the back of his neck, "Yeah, sorry, I keep forgetting you guys aren't from Earth. I'd say aliens, but it sounds just as rude out loud as it did in my head so, yep. I mean really, you guys probably have other expression-stuff-things that I would get confused at, so don't feel bad for this. I mean, really, Asgard is another planet so yeah. Um." Peter slams his jaw shut, mildly embarrassed. He hates it when his tongue runs away like that. Sometimes he can't get himself to  _shut up._

By some mercy granted to him from on high, neither Loki or Thor look offended. They don't reply, though, remaining quiet and watching him.

Peter presses his lips together, uncomfortable, "Right," he says quietly to himself and slips off of the mattress moving to his backpack to gather his homework out and a pencil. He manages to finish the rough draft of his essay, most of the studying for his chemistry test next week (midterms suck) and is well on his way into math when, in a brief moment where Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark are quiet, Loki tilts his head towards him.

"What are you doing?"

Peter shrugs slightly, "Um, school work."

Loki's eyebrows lower with slight confusion, "You are doing...is this for the learning halls?"

The learning  _what?_

"Do you mean school?" Peter questions and sees an infinitesimal nod in response, but there's still the confusion. "Yeah, I am. See," Peter lifts up the math page so both of them can see, "we do the work outside of school. It's kind of a pain the butt because no one really thinks about how little time teenagers will actually devote to doing it—but, well, that's their problem."

"I see." Thor says, his expression is intrigued, "This is basic algebraic equations."

Peter flicks his gaze up to the Asgardian, surprised, " _basic?"_ he repeats with surprise. He's not on the most advanced level of math there is out there, but the way he said it makes it seem like Asgardian six-year-olds know how to use the quadratic formula.

Before Thor or Loki can answer, Mr. Stark stands from where he and Dr. Banner have been discussing something for nearly an hour, his phone in hand.

Mr. Stark moves towards the two siblings. Loki lifts his gaze up from where it was perched on the far wall and Thor, who slipped into a light doze, blinks himself into awareness. He waves the device in front of them, "Dr. Foster just texted me, she says that she and her assistant are going to be here within an hour."

Thor visually perks, his expression filling with relief and Peter allows a soft smile at the sight of it.

The next hour passes swiftly. Loki and Thor seem to be utterly fascinated by his homework and Loki borrows Peter's history textbook and happily delves into its depths for the remainder of the wait. Thor seems equally intrigued and asks questions rarely, but for the most part looks content to watch Peter.

It's strange, but not exactly unnerving.

It's well into seventy minutes from when Tony made his announcement that Peter lifts his head in the direction of the hallway, momentarily flicking his gaze to the siblings to see them doing the same. Voices are ringing like softly dangling bells and Peter can make out Mr. Stark's and Captian Rogers', along with two unfamiliar female.

The door opens abruptly and Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark walk into the room swiftly a figure stopping in the doorway. Thor exhales softly as he lays eyes on her and Peter flicks his gaze between the two several times.

Dr. Foster stands in the doorway for a long second, her breath catching in her throat. Her auburn hair is tucked back into a high ponytail and she's wearing a shirt based from Disney's Frozen and she's tucked beneath a light jacket. She has a large purse around her shoulders as well, but as for what's  _inside_ of it is anyone's guess. She's shorter in person than Peter was expecting.

Beside her is another woman, the assistant if Peter's guessing correctly, whose glasses are crooked on her face, but her expression is soft. Her dark hair is laying across her shoulders and she's hidden beneath a hoodie, her hands stuffed into her pockets.

Dr. Foster shifts forward after a second and rapidly moves across the room. When she reaches Thor, she leans forward and wraps him in a hug. Thor relaxes into her embrace, burying his head into her shoulder and gripping her back equally furiously. Neither looks like they want to let go.

"I thought you weren't coming back." Dr. Foster whispers, it's so faint that without his enhanced hearing, Peter would have missed it completely.

"Know that it was not by my choice to make you wait, Jane." Thor answers in return, his voice equally soft and gentle.

Dr. Foster pulls back at length and Peter sees her quickly scrub the edge of her jacket sleeve over her cheeks. Her head flickers towards Loki who is sitting still, watching them and she lingers at Thor's side for only a second longer before the astrophysicist crosses the distance between them and embraces Loki.

Peter's eyes widen slightly.

Loki's spine lurches uncomfortably and he doesn't return the hug. Dr. Foster doesn't seem the mind this and holds him for a moment longer before drawing back. Loki stares up at her, his expression puzzled.

She offers a hesitant laugh in response, "I'm not sure why I did that." She admits and runs a hand through her ponytail, "You look like you need it."

Loki stares, then wets his lips, "Ah...thank you."

Jane shakes her head slightly before moving back to Thor and sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, her gaze refusing to leave him as if she's afraid that when it does he'll simply vanish. The two begin to speak in hushed tones and Peter throws his focus elsewhere to not eavesdrop. Dr. Foster's companion rocks forward slightly before taking a few more steps into the room.

She stops in front of Loki, "Is that a tenth grade history book?"

Loki flicks his gaze back down to the book, then up to her. "Indeed."

"Okay." Dr. Foster's assistant says cryptically, "Enjoying it?"

"Yes."

There's a beat, then: "Carry on then."

Loki does so, casting a final glance towards his brother and Dr. Foster before diving into the depths of the book again.

Peter manages to finish his homework before Dr. Foster's assistant turns off her Ipod and moves across the room grabbing Dr. Foster's shoulder and declaring, loudly: "I'm starving, Jane; can we get dinner?"

Dr. Foster frowns, "It's not that late, Darcy."

"It's seven thirty."

"Oh."

_Seven thirty?_ He didn't tell May that he was going to be out this long. Poofballs.

Dr. Foster looks back at Thor, who gives a hesitant smile in response, "We can continue this later if you would like."

"I would like that." Dr. Foster assures and leans forward to give his hand a quick squeeze before rising to her feet and grimacing slightly.

"Old woman." Darcy jibes and Dr. Foster lightly whacks her arm.

"I'm not  _that_ old."

"Once you get above twenty-five, you're bones are in danger of giving out."

Dr. Foster rolls her eyes and sighs slightly rubbing the back of her neck, "I think I saw a restaurant somewhere near here we can pop by."

Mr. Stark snorts loudly and claps a hand onto Captain Rogers shoulder, "Please, we have more than enough food in this tower for the two of you. Cap can get you something, I need to go grab something for Sparky and Black Cat."

Captain Rogers moves forward accordingly and the two women follow him from the room. Mr. Stark stops in the doorway abruptly and pauses, popping his head out and managing to catch Peter's gaze, "I'll grab you something, then I'll get Happy to drive you home if you don't want to patrol for a little."

"Can't," Peter admits, shaking his head, "I don't have the suit."

Mr. Stark's eyebrows lift with minor surprise, "Okay. Weird. Um. Right. Food, I'll be back in a few minutes—actually, Thor, has Bruce changed the bandages on your eye yet?"

Thor's posture seizes and he sighs, shaking his head. "No."

"Goodie." Mr. Stark grumbles, "Jarvis, tell him to get his butt down here, 'cause I don't want to go digging through eye-guts again."

"Will do, Sir." Jarvis answers briskly.

"Peter," Peter flicks his gaze up to Mr. Stark's awaiting one, "will you see if you can find some antiseptic? It's all out in here and I've been meaning to replace it. I'm going to go steal some food from the kitchens upstairs."

Peter nods and Mr. Stark disappears from the doorway, Peter following close behind. As he steps into the hallway, he's greeted by a less thick smell of hospital and it's relieving. His senses have been driven up walls in annoyance from the strong pulse of the rooms and he isn't sure how much longer he can stand in here without having to stuff onions up his nostrils.

Mr. Stark disappears into the elevator and Peter scans the hallway, searching for a room to raid. He's not sure if there will be rooms  _without_ antiseptic, but he's only been in this part of Stark Medical a few times.

After a few more seconds of indecision, he just picks the closest room to search in.

Peter slips from the room with ease, striding down the hall and stepping into an empty hospital room, flicking on the lights and moving to the supply closet. He tugs the door open and glances at the stuff inside, searching for the antiseptic. Where would they put it? Peter tries to be organized, and fails, but this is so...clean, it's almost nauseating. He honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was alphabetized.

Actually…

No.

It's not.

Peter sighs with slight annoyance and begins to dig through the shelves looking for the bottle when his spider sense blares with warning suddenly. Peter leaps to the left on instinct and a loud exhale escapes his throat as a blade slams into the space where his head was a second ago. He whirls with surprise only to be shoved back against the shelves and a blade pressed into his throat.

Peter makes a noise.

The person holding him is a woman, with weird antler-like things and dark blue hair. Her eyes look infected with glitter, but she's taller than him and her expression is calm. What?  _How did she get in here?_

"Where are they, child?" She hisses; her voice is smooth, but thin.

Peter grabs at her arm, attempting to pull the blade back. "I—I don't—"

" _Lies._ Where  _are_ they?"

He makes a garbled sound and twists at her forearm, attempting to squirm from the grip.

She makes a move to grab for his throat, but Peter catches her wrist and swings his legs up kicking her in the stomach. She stumbles back several feet, hand coming to wrap around the area as Peter tumbles to the floor.

" _Jarvis!"_

The AI remains quiet and Peter leaps for the other weapon present in the room wishing desperately for his web shooters. Why did he have to stop wearing them all the time?

" _JARVIS!"_

The woman dives towards him again and they engage briefly in battle. He has been learning from the Avengers resistant ex-assassins, as well as a few lessons from Steve, but there's something completely different from the team, which though they're happy to bruise him, they aren't going for the kill. And he's not fighting against other weapons.

He's swiftly disarmed and her hand wraps around his throat. "I don't have time for these games, we know that you found them."

" _Them?"_ Peter chokes out squirming against her grip.

The woman's eyes flicker with annoyance. "The Asgardian prince and the Jotunn wretch."

Asgardian.

Thor. Loki.

_Crap._

Something must show on his face because the woman's expression twists into a smile. "They're here, aren't they? Yes, no need to deny it, I can see it on your face, child. You are no longer useful to me." With that stated, the woman lifts her hand and blows thick dust into his face. Peter chokes and the sent is sharp, acidic and painful as he inhales despite his attempts to evade it.

_Wait!_ He wasn't ready for this! "This" what is " _this"!?_ What the heck is going on?

His vision is blurring, the woman has dropped him and is striding from the room, but he can't make his muscles move. Everything is blurry. He's tired. Exhausted. His eyes are slipping shut— _he needs to move—_ and Peter slips into unconsciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so fun fact 'cause I'm an astronomy nerd: One of the main chemicals Uranus is made up of is hydrogen sulfide, which is what gives rotting eggs their smell. This is why Peter compares Uranus to a horribly smelling lunch, because Uranus would not be pleasant to inhale.
> 
> Anyway, yep, so, yeah. Thank you guys for your patience, this story is hard to get motivated to write so it sort of happens in rapid bursts where I complete a chapter in half a day then don't think about it for another month. Given this, I'm not certain when he next chapter will be out, but I thank you happily for your continued interest! You're all so sweet. =) Happy New Year!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! 2019, my friends! =)
> 
> Last chapter! Whoop! Thank you so much for sticking with me this long! =) You're amazing!
> 
> Warnings: Some violence.

 

* * *

 

Peter wakes up with a staggering headache, a burning sensation in the back of his throat, and the strong desire to throw up. Light is pulsing into his eyelids with the burning power of looking straight into the sun without any coverings and it isn't helping the headache. Peter hisses softly through his teeth slightly and pulls a hand up to cover his face to block out the worst of the glare.

"Sorry." A voice murmurs and the phosphorescent wanes.

Mmm.

Yeah, that's better.

That voice. Peter knows that voice. Where does he know it from? Blue lights...red...um...Iron Man. Tony Stark. Mr. Stark. He's in the room with him. He adjusted the light. Memories follow this thought rapidly and Peter rips his eyes open, jerking forward into a sitting position with a noise that sounds a mixture of a wailing cat and cry of pain.

Thor. Loki.

Weird, purple-eyed-glitter lady.

The dust-thing.

Then nothing.

A hand grips his shoulder and Peter whips his head up to see Mr. Stark staring at him with a thinned expression, "Hey," he says softly, "it's fine. You've probably got a wicked headache. Lay down."

Peter shakes his head—which does not help the pulsing burn behind his eyelids in the slightest. He presses his fingers against his temples and swallows, opening his mouth to make a noise, but all that comes out is a croak.

Mr. Stark shifts and there's a few seconds before a glass of water is stuffed into his hands. Peter takes it gratefully and downs the liquid before turning to Mr. Stark, "There's…" he clears his throat and winces slightly, "person. Here. For Loki and Thor."

" _The Asgardian prince and the Jotunn wretch."_

Mr. Stark nods and releases a slight breath, running a hand through his messy hair. "It's handled, you've been asleep for a while."

He can't keep doing this. The next time he has to skip he's going to have to retake this grade and  _that_ appeals very little. Peter pales and wraps his fingers around the glass. School. He is never going to pass school because of how much he's been skipping. He really doesn't want to know, but... "How long is a while?"

"About fifteen hours."

_Cats._

" _What?"_

"Relax." Mr. Stark instructs, "Everything is handled with your aunt and school; they promised to give you extensions. Natasha called you in for a family emergency, anyone asks, your aunt had major food poisoning last night, kay?"

But that did not—

"Um—?"

"And before you ask, no, she didn't. She's not very happy about what happened, but she agreed to the facade."

Right. Great. He is so grounded when he gets home.

"Okay, but—"

"Yes, Thor and Loki are fine...ish. We got to the scene of the attack shortly after you passed out. The woman is detained via S.H.I.E.L.D. and being held for questioning. Clint spent some time with her and what we know so far is that she's told us is that she hails from somewhere beyond Earth and Thanos is her father—apparently he's some sort of maniac, I didn't really press for details."

Alright. Great. Because the universe doesn't already have enough of those.

"Ish?"

Mr. Stark's lips thin tightly, "Ah, um, in the battle, some things were revealed that Loki and Thor didn't know, and they're...processing."

Okay. Right. What would they not know that would make them "process"? Is it something about Asgard? Does the glitter-eyed-lady know anything more about it than they do? "Like what?"

Tony pauses, then sighs wringing his hands anxiously. "In the war with Malekith, they weren't on Asgard. They didn't know about Queen Frigga's death."

Peter stills and exhales softly through his nose. "Oh."

Mr. Stark nods slightly, "Yeah."

Grief is something that is hard to process. Peter's had more experience with it than he cares for—he really doesn't want to think about this. He needs to switch topics. "Do you have a name for the woman?" Peter asks.

Mr. Stark nods, leaning back in the chair slightly. He looks exhausted. When was the last time that he slept? Mr. Stark has awful sleeping habits on his best days, but it doesn't look like he's slept since yesterday. "Midnight Proxima. She was one of Loki and Thor's sub-captors." Tony explains.

Perfect. Swell. Great rainbows in the sky.

"Great." Peter mutters.

"Not really." Tony counters.

No kidding.

"But otherwise? They're fine?" Peter presses.

"Thor's eye is looking better and Loki's fingers set, Proxima didn't get much time to do anything before Bucky suckerpunched her in the face. Natasha had her pinned in about a minute and the rest of us were shortly behind to keep her that way. I am very grateful that I've never had to be on the end of the Winter-Widow teamup of death when they actually mean to hurt you. She looked pretty purple...well, more so that she should be." Tony says, his expression thoughtful.

"Glitter eyes." Peter agrees, "It's not natural." Weird and reminds him of mermaids for some strange reason.

"Are you alright?" Tony asks, drawing him back to the present. "It took us a while to find something to counter her drugs—and it wasn't even us. Did you know that Loki is an avid chemist? Apparently he's really into that sort of thing. He and Bruce geek-talked and he recommended a solution. Sorry. Rambling. What I'm trying to say is that you scared me."

Peter's lips thin and he bites his tongue heavily for a second.

_What the heck is he supposed to say to that?_

"Sorry. I just...I don't know, my senses had been going nuts for hours so when she attacked I didn't have any warning of it happening." His spider sense sometimes does that, it can be very useful, but then it has the days that it's like a sick child who keeps sneezing and the sensory overload is powerful and painful. For the most part, he just ignores the warnings. As he did last night...day(?).

Mr. Stark hums quietly in response.

...And it was definitely unhappy after running into Mr. Osborn, whom Peter still doesn't know how he knew about him. Peter didn't agree to putting his name into the S.H.I.E.L.D. database when Coulson brought it up.

Unless...

_Unless..._

"Mr. Stark?"

Mr. Stark tips his head, "Yes?"

"Can I ask a question? About the internship." Peter questions. The internship that is hardly an internship anymore, which why it is not surprise that everyone is pretty sure Peter got fired.

"What about it?" Mr. Stark asks his voice pitched with slight surprise.

"Did…" Peter pauses, mentally rewording before instead saying: "We agreed to keep my identity private, right?"

"Right."

"The Avengers, Coulson, May and me. That was it?" Peter asks, desperately hoping for a confirmation. He doesn't get it.

Instead, Mr. Stark looks puzzled. "I don't understand…" He trails, then his brow furrows and his brown eyes narrow, "Wait, did something happen? Does someone know?"

Peter barely represses a wince. Mr. Stark's mind is always blurring forward at rates so fast Peter doesn't think he can ever compare. "Not exactly. Norman Osborn tried to offer me a job at Oscorp." Peter reveals. Which is nice and all, but off setting and extremely uncomfortable and—

Tony goes rigid and his expression looks mildly lethal. " _What?_ How dare that soul-sucking creep try to take my kid—" Mr. Stark stops abruptly mid-rant and turns to him eyes suddenly desperate, "Did he harm you? What did he do? Does he know about Spider-Man?"

What?

No.

_Small kittens._

What if he does?

"No, nothing, and no." Peter assures, "At least as far as I could tell on the latter."

Mr. Stark makes a frustrated noise and runs a hand through his hair, one hand coming to rub against the arc reactor for a second. He blows a raspberry. "Alright. I'll talk to Clint, he can do some scoping to see what his endgame is. For now, you need to rest."

Peter shakes his head and bites his tongue at the power of his headache. "I'm not tired."

Mr. Stark raises an eyebrow, as if this was the expected answer. "We're pumping alien drugs from your system that put you in such a deep sleep your brainwaves almost stopped completely."

... _Oh._

"...I'll um, go back to sleep then."

"Good choice."

000o000

Peter gets released from the hospital the next day after extensive examining that involves Dr. Banner practically shoving medical equipment up his nose to look at his brain, and goes home to an enraged aunt who yells at him for being an idiot then cries. They spend the night on the couch together watching as much of the Star Wars trilogy as they can until they both fall asleep.

The next morning is a scramble for her to get to work and Peter to school, so they hardly speak as they rush to and fro gathering supplies.

School passes with minimal problems (save when he walked into his math class and his teacher asked how his aunt was and Peter almost asked  _him_ if something was wrong with her); and when Peter is finally freed from it's embrace, he escapes to the city as Spider-Man.

He spends a few hours helping where he can before turning his focus to Avengers Tower to go check on Loki and Thor. He didn't get a chance to speak with them before he left and he only saw Loki briefly when he walked past with Dr. Banner as he was trying to sleep the drugs off.

When he arrives at the Tower, he spots a figure sitting on the edge of the landing platform. Confused, but not nearly as surprised as what could be proper (the Avengers have done weirder things, like the one time with the giant battle against some dude who was holding an entire apartment building hostage and they managed to convince him to flee into a trap by waving laser pointers at him—long story, Peter's found it better not to ask for details).

He swings onto the edge and recognizes Loki a few seconds later. The Asgardian is dressed in sweatpants, one of Tony's various collection of Avengers T-shirts and wrapped in a thick jacket that he's pretty sure came from Bucky. Even with the bulk of clothing, it's still clear how painfully thin he is. His long hair is tucked back into a braid that was probably done by Natasha (he has seen her hair doing skills and it is nothing to laugh over) and his fingers are still wrapped in the bandages.

Peter rocks on his feet for a second before moving forward and plopping down next to him. Loki flicks his gaze up to him before returning it out to the city.

Peter follows his gaze for a second; the sun is setting slowly in the distance casting a brilliant light on the buildings and makes them seem to glow. New York is never quiet on it's best days, and this is more than true today. Peter wouldn't find it distracting, per say, but New York's beauty is something that he's just adjusted to—he doesn't really think about it anymore.

There's silence between them for about a minute before Peter glances back at Loki, "You okay?"

Loki releases a breath and lifts his hands, picking at his right palm, "I don't know."

Peter's lips thin and he hums slightly, "Yeah. I get that," he assures. He pauses for a second as he realizes something: in the midst of knowing Loki and Thor, he has never seen them apart for more than a few minutes. Judging from the flush on Loki's face, he's been outside for a while. "Where's Thor?"

Loki gestures vaguely behind them towards the penthouse, "With his beloved."

Dr. Foster. Thor is with Dr. Foster. "Oh," Peter voices. He's quiet for a second, his gaze flickering back and forth between Loki and the building, "...are you hiding from them?"

Loki whips his head up and raises a thin eyebrow in his direction, "Hardly. Why would I be? They aren't doing anything but holding hands and speaking for long periods of times. This isn't the first time that Thor has courted and…" The Asgardian trails, sighs then buries his head into his hands, "Yes. I am."

Peter's suddenly very grateful for the mask because it hides the smile that spreads on his face of amusement. "Why?"

Loki doesn't lift his head, remaining hunched forward, "Lady Foster is overwhelming. Thor finds great comfort in her presence, but I...don't."

When Loki doesn't elaborate, Peter nudges his arm slightly. It's like dragging poison from a wound to get Loki do talk about something. But he's doing better. A few days ago he wouldn't have said anything at all...the Avengers have that effect. They're terrifying, certainly, but they also have this ability to make anyone feel safe and at ease when they  _want_ them to.

Loki jumps slightly at the touch, but looks up at him. Peter gestures with his hands for him to continue and Loki's lips press together tightly. "I think I'd rather not."

Peter frowns, "Talking about it will help."

"It won't."

"I have personal experience with this. Ask Mr. Stark."

"Well, isn't that just fine." Loki snaps, he looks prepared to run and Peter grabs his shoulder to ground him. Loki tenses under his touch, but Peter forces his posture to remain calm to ease the Asgardian.

"I was held captive too, Loki." Loki stills and stares at him with wide green eyes. Peter bites at his lip suddenly wondering  _why on Earth_ he decided to talk about this when he barely managed to get the full story out to Mr. Stark and May when they talked to him. "One of Mr. Stark's employees was working on a project and stole some of the repulser...ah,right, you don't know what that is. Some of his equipment. Anyway, Mr. Stark found out about it and fired him, and he was furious. He stole his project and went after Mr. Stark.

"I saw the attack and stopped him from taking of Mr. Stark's head, but he escaped. Mr. Stark thanked me for saving him and I sort of thought that was it. Mr. Stark found out my identity 'cause he thought I sounded young and contacted me about an internship at his company. I said yes. A couple of weeks passed before the would-be-assassin man found out about it, then me and my counterpart and came after me.

"Getting kidnapped is really only fun in movies, you know. He held me in a room without windows or a door for a week. There was food and water, but eventual starvation was going to be the inevitable fate. Mr. Stark found me and I couldn't even speak a coherent sentence to him. So yes, I know what you're talking about."

Peter chews on his inner lip and Loki remains quiet for a long moment.

Loki's rubbing at his chest with two fingers and his lips are thinned, "Please forgive me ignorance."

"I'm not angry." Peter assures, "I just want to know why you're hiding out here."

Loki sighs, "Lady Foster was one of the reasons that me and my brother fell into our captor's hands. I can't look at her without thinking about it."

_Ah._

Oh.

Hmm.

Peter makes a noise in the back of his throat, "Yeah. Okay." He fidgets with his hands before glancing at the Asgardian again, "Are you injured?"

Loki looks at him, confused. "What?"

"You keep," Peter mimics the rubbing motion against his chest.

Loki stills it and glances down at his hand as if surprised before tugging his legs up from where they were previously hanging over the edge. "No, I'm not; it's just…" Loki pauses, his eyes rapidly shifting back and forth, "what is the word?"

He turns to him, "When your heart jumps inside your chest or beats wrong? What is that?"

The what?

Peter stares at him flabbergasted for a second before the word and explanation click in his head.

Palpitation.

Oh man.

"Palpitation," Peter supplies, "that's not good. Should I get Dr. Banner or—"

"No," Loki assures, "it wouldn't matter. It will pass, given time. It always has." Apparently sensing Peter's horror Loki shrugs slightly, rising to his feet. "Come, Mr. Stark has been meaning to speak with you."

Peter follows suit and steps into pace with the Asgardian. "Is it just like a medical history, or did something happen?"

Loki smiles slightly, but it's bitter on the edges. "Thor had to restart my heart; it hasn't been the same since that point."

000o000

Loki vanishes when they return inside and Peter spends a few minutes with Thor and Dr. Foster (of whom he immediately embarrasses himself by gushing over her research (astrophysics isn't his thing, but still, it's  _Dr. Jane Foster)_ before tracking down Mr. Stark about what he wanted to discuss—which was nothing. He dragged Peter back to the medical room, plopped him down and Dr. Banner examined him for the drugs  _again_ before letting him leave.

So Peter went home.

Tired and grumpy, but home.

He gets up the next morning and repeats the process again.

And again.

And again and again and again—for a month. He manages to cram time between Avengers Tower, Spider-Man and school in even though he usually feels like he got smacked over the head by a bear, he drags his feet out of bed every morning to help where he can.

Dr. Foster gets called back to D.C. after the second week, no longer able to put it off so she and Darcy leave with a promise to call Thor and another round of hugs is passed. (Loki looked between plotting her murder and seconds from committing it).

The Avengers aren't called away for any missions and the villains of the world are being strangely merciful by not deciding that Manhattan is the best place for their weekly raze of destruction. (Elsewhere, yeah, they're pretty active, but teh Avengers only get called to deal with two of the larger battles that take less time and S.H.I.E.L.D. deals with the rest). They spend most of their time helping Loki and Thor adjust.

Peter accidentally learns that both of them can speak Russian easily when he walked into the common room one day to hear them rapidly speaking about something with Natasha, Loki's hands moving rapidly (something he's discovered Loki does when he's enthusiastic about the topic) that was  _far_ beyond his basic understanding (yes (da) no (n'et) and thank you (spasiba). He knows that Natasha calls him malen'kiy pauk, but what it's supposed to mean is beyond him.)

Loki has a dislike for sweets, but Thor can consume entire poptart boxes with ease. They both eat like they haven't seen food for years, but neither really puts on any weight.

Thor is an artist and he and Steve spent hours sketching the New York skyline one day as he taught Loki a few card games (the younger Asgardian cheats, it is not even remotely fair or funny when he doesn't know all the rules but  _still_ manages to cheat).

Even though Peter couldn't really see it at first, both of them  _were_  raised as princes. They hold themselves a certain way that commands respect, they eat neatly, both of them are fairly clean, and ridiculously firm about their clothing not being a mess. Then there are less graceful things: Thor is terrible at coordination with one eye even with time to adjust and rams into doorways often, Loki is a klutz and frequently trips  _up_ stairs when his feet are given opportunity and drops things all the time.

It's as amusing as it is frustrating.

Then they'll do something that will remind Peter that they were held captive for years. Jumping at abrupt contact, Loki transforming into animals and spending hours perched on Thor's shoulders because Thor can't handle people, or when Thor stole from Bruce's library for Loki.

Peter manages to catch up on school with effort and a minimal amount of tears, studies for midterms and passes with A's. He's thrilled and relieved because now he doesn't have to worry about remembering the useless information he'll forget in a few hours anyway, and midterms is  _over._ Tests are just stressful, no matter how they're presented.

Peter proudly proclaims this to Tony who is equally cheerful and declares that they're going to celebrate by going out to some fancy restaurant that Peter probably couldn't afford to buy a napkin from. Or water.

"They're" being  _everyone._

And so they do.

To the restaurants credit, when the Avengers, Loki, Thor,  _and_ Peter walk into the building, they only look mildly surprised before directing them towards one of the largest tables they have available. Peter is humiliated, but buries his red face as best he can by ducking his head and following after the rest of the team.

They plop down at the table like this is one of the most normal things in the world as Peter, Loki and Thor awkwardly take their seats.

Peter is thankfully on the edge beside Natasha, but Loki  _and_ Thor get sandwiched between Tony and Clint. Peter's only eaten a few meals with the Avengers before, but he quickly becomes accustomed to the fact that if it's on your plate, it doesn't necessarily mean that it won't be stolen from. They also make each other try different foods by sliding it onto plates or passing it around and watching with delight when everyone makes the same sour face in disgust.

Such as now.

"Uh, this is nasty." Natasha declares, pushing away a plate of a weird yellow-substance that has the consistency of pumpkin pie and tastes like rotting cheese.

"Indeed." Thor says, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth and looking ready to promptly vomit. The two of them, besides Bucky, are the last to try the weird thing—but Loki, who is lactose intolerant, can't have it and doesn't look to sorrowful about it.

"Right?" Tony agrees between a mouthful of something else, "It's like sucking on Cap's socks after he's gone running."

Peter grimaces with disgust.

"Okay, didn't need that mental image." Clint promises, looking vaguely horrified.

"Yeah, me either." Bruce assures.

Steve looks mildly embarrassed and waves a fork in Tony's direction, "You know what, Tony—?"

"Let's not do this now." Sam prompts, throwing a roll towards Steve, "Be appeased by white bread. We're here for Peter, remember?"

Steve glances at him and takes the roll picking off a piece, "Right. Sorry."

Tony smirks and Bucky leans forward to steal a piece from the weird yellow thing and Peter watches his expression morph into disgust and he glances up at Steve. "You could hide poison in that."

Thor perks, "Really?" He asks, then nudges Loki's elbow, "Do you remember when—"

"Yes." Loki cuts, "Let's not get into details."

"What details?" Peter asks curiously, glancing between the two.

Loki blows out a breath and makes a pointed look in Thor's direction, "Nothing."

"Whoa, okay, wait," Tony commands, lifting a hand and causing Loki to groan and bury his head into his hands. "I want to hear the story about poison."

" _No._ " Loki says firmly.

"Thor?" Clint asks hopefully.

Thor shakes his head, but his lips are twitching on a smile, "That is not my tale to reveal."

"Darn," Clint murmurs, "those are usually pretty entertaining. Who got poisoned?"

"Me," Loki says and lifts his head to glare in the archers direction, "I, as you are well aware, have allergies. Someone put one of such things into a acidic food and I couldn't taste it then spent hours throwing up. Satisfied?"

Clint looks considerably put down by it, winces slightly, but nods. "Yep, sorry."

Peter awkwardly bites at his lip and glances down at his plate, picking at some sort of jello thing. Conversation leaks back into the table, but it's not quite as elated.

About five minutes later, Peter's picking at one of the rolls when his spider sense blares abruptly and a person slams their hands down on the table and all of them jump, looking up.

Color drains from his face slightly as he sees  _who_ it is.

Peter has been a little preoccupied to really think much about Norman Osborn's offer last month, and Tony never told him if there was something that he needed to be aware of when (or if) Clint did the scoping.

Mr. Osborn's hands are shaking despite their position on the table, and his eyes are deeply shadowed with a slight crazed look present in the iris. HIs clothing that Peter has never seen looking anything but picture perfect looks like he went running through the woods.

"Mr. Parker," his voice is stretched, pitched and strangely...giggly.  _Giggly?_ It is though.  _Giggles._ Peter unconsciously shifts closer to Natasha.

"Can we help you, Mr. Osborn?" Tony questions, his expression is masked and his discomfort reminds Peter strongly of his own.

Mr. Osborn tilts his head and looks back at Tony breathing heavily, "No, I thinkkkk…" he strains, his word slurring, "not."

He turns back to Peter and shudders, "You refused my offer. My  _gracious offer."_ Anger. Hate. Disgust.

"I—I…" Peter stutters, "It wasn't...I was busy."

He forgot.

He didn't care?

Mr. Osborn frightened him?

" _Yes."_ Mr. Osborn agrees thickly, " _Very busy. Busy, busy, busy._ Where  _would_ we all be if we weren't busy?"

"Norman," Tony says carefully, he's on his feet though Peter can't recall him standing, "this can wait. You're not welcome here."

" _Welcome?"_ Mr. Osborn snarls, "I've  _waited_ long enough. This is his fault that it happened—he was supposed to fix it. That's why I searched and searched, he would take it and  _I_ wouldn't and  _he would die_ and  _I wouldn't."_ He dives forward and grabs Peter's wrist, shaking his arm rapidly as he repeats the word dragging Peter to his feet: " _Wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't."_

Peter's heart is pounding in his chest and he attempts to squirm from the grip, but it's iron. Something is wrong with the man and Peter doesn't know what it is. He looks almost drunk, but excessively paranoid and angered—no, he's smiling.  _Smiling?_

"Norman," Steve's voice is calm, but even, and Peter chances a look towards the table. Everyone is on their feet and Peter can see Clint, Natasha and Bucky's hands going towards where they keep their guns on their person. "Let go of Peter."

Mr. Osborn's smile stretches, "I think not. After all, he can take it, can't he? He's," Mr. Osborn leans forward a little as if sharing a great secret and his lips stretch further, " _Spider-Man."_

Peter stills, his spin rearing with horror.

_No, no, no, no, no._

May.

Is May alright?

_He can't know that!_

Mr. Osborn drags Peter backwards and he is suddenly bizarrely confused on where all the employees are—or the other civilians until he remembers that the restaurant is empty save them (and the employees), and there's the faint smell, but thickly sweet smell of chloroform now that he's focused on it.

Mr. Osborn tugs out a vial from one of his suits pockets that's thick with red and Peter makes an exclamation squirming backwards as the needle touches his skin.

It doesn't break it.

Three bullets fly past Mr. Osborn and Peter missing wildly, but the vial is ripped from Mr. Osborn's hands and sails over their heads, landing in Loki's outstretched fingers. It's a surprising, but sudden reminder that Loki is a wielder of magic.

And that means more than shapeshifting.

Loki shoves the vial into Thor's hands and lightning cackles down the older Asgardian's fingers before the vial explodes and the remains of the heated liquid are caught by Loki's sorcery before they can come into contact with Thor's skin and he vanishes it.

Peter breathes heavily, sharply widely swinging his gaze up to meet Tony's.

Mr. Osborn's grip loosens a infinitesimal amount before he growls lowly in his throat, "Fine. I'll just find a different way. Different way, different home, different  _death._ Like you. Dead, dead, dead!" Mr. Osborn throws Peter towards the table and he stumbles nearly landing flat on his face, but Tony's hands catch his upper arms and keep him grounded.

Mr. Osborn laughs and chucks something across the room before slipping outside. It lands with a clatter at their feet.

His spider sense  _blares_ in a way that he's felt very few times in his life.

" _GRENADE!"_

" _GET DOWN!"_

Tony's arms wrap around Peter desperately, tucking him into his chest and Peter buries himself into the embrace, horror grasping around his throat and refusing to let him breathe.  _They're going to die, they're going to die, they're going to die._

_Dead, dead, dead._

The bomb goes off and though Peter feels the vibration against his feet and through his body, it's not as sharp, burning or painful as it should be. The noise is deafening and induces another round of panic to shudder through him. Tony's hold around his shoulders and against the back of his head is taut and when the blast passes, it doesn't ease.

Peter squirms out of the death grip, panting heavily through his teeth and sees that Tony's nose is bleeding and that a greenish glow is surrounding them. The injuries are nothing like they should be for being this close to a blast radius. The building around them is in flames and charred with a hole blasted through the ceiling.

_But they should be dead._

_All of them._

Broken glass is scattered around him and seems to be where most of the blood on everyone else came from. They dived for cover, but it didn't seem to help much. Natasha is beneath Clint's embrace and Steve, Bucky, and Sam dove for the table.

Thor and Loki, however, are standing closest to the flames, Loki's hands lifted up in an arch. Green light is pouring from his fingers to the dome before it flickers and the dome dies. The smoke is immediately stifling, but Loki lifts his hand and twists his fingers, gathering the inferno from off the ground and clenching his fist causing it to sputter and die. He lifts up his palm and blows, and ice splatters across the ground, crawling towards the places that were burning catching any remaining embers in the cold.

Loki turns back towards them, his expression cold. He scans them all before glancing at Thor and murmuring something in their native tongue. Thor answers shortly with a nod and Loki's eyes harden.

"Remain here, my brother and I have hunting to do." Loki's tone is dangerous.

"I—I don't know if—" Steve starts to say, scrambling from his position and winching, lifting a hand to his side that draws back red. Bucky grabs his shoulder a second later.

Peter squeezes his eyes shut and tries to bury panic. It's different being on this side of the explosions and injuries, when  _he's_ the helpless civilian. Not the hero. Why wont his hands stop shaking!? Tony runs his fingers through his hair.

"Breathe," he instructs quietly.

Peter inhales, them comes to the realization that he wasn't.

"Come Loki," Thor says and Peter hears the  _shing_ of weapons being drawn before he looks towards the Asgardians as Loki hands Thor a sword. Where it  _came_ from is beyond him. Both glance at them once more before Loki lifts his hand and snaps his fingers, the two of them being dragged upwards in a bluish light before vanishing completely.

000o000

The battle is rapid, but messy.

Peter and the Avengers spend a majority of it outside the restaurant, nursing bleeding wounds and only catch the last minute or so. Lightning is wielded from the sky and it's a harsh, but firm reminder as to why the norse-men thought Asgardians were beings of higher power.

During the last brief lapse of the battle, Mr. Osborn attempts to run down their street before the asphalt ripples to ice beneath his toes and he lands flat on his back with a loud exclamation. Lightning ripples through the air and thunder follows before Thor slams to the ground, electricity pulsing across his limbs.

Loki is a second behind and gathers material from the explosion, bending metal and wraps it around Mr. Osborn's chest for restraints before he and Thor speak cursory in their native tongue once more.

Mr. Osborn slumps with defeat, and the pedestrians watching gawk openly.

This lasts for about six minutes until S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives and waves them off.

Director Coulson speaks with the two princes briefly before shoving someone to pick up Mr. Osborn and walks up to them.

"Anything lethal?" He questions glancing at their various states. Tony's fingers clench from where they've been running in Peter's hair for nearly fifteen minutes now. Peter is fine, Tony made sure of that.

"No," Steve assures.

Director Coulson nods and glances back at the Asgardians, then back to Steve and Tony and sighs. "You really need to stop collecting people."

Tony and Steve sputter, but neither denies it.

000o000

Peter sort of thought that that was that. The Avengers would go back to the tower and Peter would go home and life would resume as it was.

Loki and Thor's presence becomes public and beyond the media explosion and attempts to take photos, no one gets anything beyond blurs.

Still, though, a little different, but basically the same.

Not the case.

Two weeks later, they're battling some dude whose pretty determined to send everyone back to the dark ages, by raising New York City to the ground. Why is that everyone's solution for everything? Although New York is pretty done with super villains trying to kill them, Peter supposes is convenient because he really only can look out for New York and occasionally New Jersey—on a freelance basis.

The man—who is wearing an ugly hat that looks like deer horns that were shoved through a window and they've been calling him Deer-Man for the better part of the battle—is putting up a pretty good fight. Even with Loki and Thor's assistance, which as made the containment process incredibly easier, he's still raging on and ranting about how awful humanity is.

But still. Deer-Man has an EMP gun that he shoots widely, taking out buildings, cars, street lamps, and pretty much anything that has electricity which is annoying because it makes a loud screeching noise as it does so making it sound like an opera singer with a bad cold. Along with his...unique personality, he has small army of robots welding the same gun, it's a loud and frankly aggravating fight.

"So done!" Peter exclaims, swinging towards a building and firing a web towards one of the robots and smashing it into another. "I am so done with their singing! Didn't they know that the opera performance is not for the faint of heart!? I am faintly in my heart! They can't even sing! Besides didn't they know that the performance was supposed to be at nine-thirty? They missed it!"

"Probably why they're so angry." Bucky supplies and Peter hears a grunt over the comm before there's the swishing sound of Loki's sorcery slamming into something.

"Should we give them a chance to perform then?" Loki inquires dully, "See if that would appease the community temper-tantrum?"

Peter snorts.

Thor laughs, "I think not, brother; I have my doubts it would be helpful."

"Yeah, me too." Tony agrees, diving past where Peter is perched to fire a missile. "Have you contained Deer-Man yet, Widow?"

"No," Natasha grits, "he won't stop waving his gun around and shooting. Professionals are predictable, I'd wager he hasn't held a gun since this morning."

Well.

That's nice.

Peter leaps from off the building to land on a robot and rip it's gun from it's hands and fires towards another, "Do you think that he realizes that he's using  _technology_ to stop technology?" Peter asks curiously, swinging off of the robot so it can run into another.

"Huh." Sam says after a second, "Yeah, I hadn't even thought about it, so I'm guessing no."

Loki blows out a breath. "Cretin."

Peter hums with agreement and hears Hulk roar loudly in the distance. He focuses as well as he can on destroying the robots before he hears Natasha let out a victorious grunt. "Got him, Deer-Man is contained."

"Hallelujah." Tony grumbles, "Tell him to turn off his singers, would you?"

Peter huffs, "Yes, I cannot even hear myself thi—what the heck? Bright light, brilliant—that's bright!" Peter scrambles backwards on the building with surprise as the rainbow cascade of colors slams into the middle of the street for a few seconds, covering his eyes until it passes.

A few men stand where the light vanished to and it takes Peter a second until he realizes what it was.

The Bifrost.

_Asgard._

"Thor." Loki says urgently.

"I see it." Thor promises, his voice is thick with disbelief.

"We can handle this." Steve assures, "Go."

000o000

Peter remains in the general vicinity of the Bifrost, watching. The Asgardians appear to universally shrug before throwing themselves into the fray, but stay painfully close to the burned runes.

It's about five minutes before Peter spots Loki and Thor quickly working their way through the battle. He crawls along the wall before flipping towards the ground to give them cover and quietly pleads with Natasha to hurry up about Deer-Man.

The two siblings come to a halt in front of an older man with a staff in hand and Loki tumbles to his knees, hand over his heart and head bowed urgently. "Father, please forgive me."

Thor follows suit, but remains quiet.

Father.

Odin?

 _That's_  King Odin?

Peter's seen a picture from Tony's HUD, but he looks...Peter doesn't know, smaller in person? Less intimidating? That might also be because of the fact that they don't have an evil elf bent on destroying light's butt to kick.

Odin collapses to his knees in front of them and releases his staff-thing to the ground gathering both of them into his arms and clutching like the moment he releases they'll vanish.

And he doesn't look like he's letting go any time soon.

000o000

Deer-Man finally stops the demon-robots and Peter breathes a collective sigh of relief with the rest of the Avengers when he does so. The silence is welcomed. It's like chocolate, but...air...chocolate.

Loki and Thor approach them after Coulson's left to direct clean-up, both looking considerably lighter and happy. Odin is trailing behind, watching with a wide eye of disbelief and relief that Peter doesn't think he'll ever understand until he's a parent.

"We are returning to Asgard." Thor says quietly, "We will still visit when we can, but our father wants us to return with him."

Peter's stomach sinks slightly.

Oh.

The Avengers share a collective glance. "Alright." Steve agrees tentatively.

"What about Thanos?" Tony questions after a second.

Odin snorts heavily and shakes his head, "That fool who thought himself important has been dealt with."

"Define "dealt"." Clint requests.

Odin's lip quivers up into a satisfied smile, "He took my children, I took his life. I am not a forgiving man and anyone who dares to touch my sons shall feel my wrath descend upon them. We received word of Thor and Loki's possible location and I hastened to it, but when I arrived my sons' had escaped and left Thanos's plan in tatters. He had no idea where they had gone to and sent his children to scour the galaxy. When I learned of my sons' presence here…" Odin grips Loki's shoulder tightly for a second, "I am a blessed man to have finally found my children."

Tony's hand lands on Peter's shoulder, "Yeah, I think I can understand that."

Odin turns to Peter and dips his head in respect, "You have my thanks for your part in their survival. I am forever indebted to you. Call for my assistance and I will send a legion of Einherjar to your aid with haste."

_Ein-what?_

Um. Confused is to small of a word and—okay, wait.  _Forever-_ _forever?_ That's a long time and all Peter really did was kidnap—oh, man, yeah, not going down that particular road of memory lane.

Peter nods slightly, "Thank you."

Odin returns the gesture then rests his hands on his sons' shoulders, "Come, my children, Asgard awaits."

"Thank you, Avengers," Loki says then moves to give Peter a fleeting hug.

Thor happily echoes his siblings gesture then lifts up his hand, "Highest of fives?"

Peter rolls his eyes and slaps it accordingly, " _High-five,_ Thor."

Thor grins knowingly as he fist pumps Tony, "I know."

The Asgardians turn towards the Bifrost site and Odin tips his head towards the sky, " _Heimdall_ _—o_ _pen the Bifrost!"_ and all vanish in a blur of hope-laced light.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience with me as I've worked on this story, I am so grateful for your support.
> 
> Really, I can't really explain how much it has meant to me.
> 
> =) You're phenomenal, my stars, and don't you dare forget that!


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